Human beings don't need to eat meat. But should we?

[Tim Gier]

Jeff McMahan (philosopher, Rutgers University) thinks that it is obvious that we shouldn't. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast he discusses his views with Nigel Warburton.  Please click this link to listen to this 16 minute audio podcast.

[Eriyah Flynn]

I have some additional information for Professor Jeff McMahan to consider when he thinks and talks about these issues, especially with regard to backyard chickens. (and probably the dairy too, but I'm just going to address this one issue right now) Matt Bear of Nonviolence United wrote up this comprehensive statement regarding why back yard chickens are problematic:

There are at least a few reasons why people choose not to consume eggs taken from backyard chickens.  I’m not presenting these as reasons why *you* should not consume the eggs, but if the reasons resonate with you, you might reconsider how your choices align with your own values.

 

1. Where did the chickens come from?  Almost all egg-laying chickens come from breeders or hatcheries.  The breeding of animals for human use feels unethical to some people.  This is especially true when breeding is forced (research “artificial insemination” to learn about some of the most barbaric cruelties inflicted upon animals by humans).
2. What happened to the males? Backyard hens are female.  Males, in both the backyard chicken industry and in commercial egg profiteering, are considered worthless.  They do not grow flesh fast enough for the chicken flesh industry and they won’t lay eggs.  Once their sex is determined (usually at a day or two old), the males are discarded often just by being thrown away into dumpsters to suffocate and die, peeping; or thrown alive into grinders to be used for fertilizer and animal feed.  There are obvious ethical considerations for people who care about animals.
3. Is this natural?  Egg-laying chickens have been steadily selectively bred for decades lay an unnatural number of eggs.  This includes backyard chickens.  The breeding industry has its own methods of cruelty including keeping breeders captive, killing most of the males immediately (don’t need as many roosters to breed), killing all the chickens when they are no longer profitable/productive.  This relates to the ethics of breeding and use of animals for human habit and profit.
4. The health of the chickens.  Two main issues here: a) Because the chickens lay an unnatural number of eggs, they tend to become calcium deficient and become ill.  Some chickens will eat their own eggs (the shells mostly) to replace the lost minerals.  But egg-laying chickens become nutritionally deficient relatively quickly.  This leads to: b) Will the backyard chickens be taken care of by animal health professionals when they are ill?  It is unlikely that most backyard chicken enthusiasts think this through or are willing to go through the expense of veterinary care.  This is of course not true for everyone – it’s just an observation of the chickens in my neighborhood and the chickens I’ve seen abandoned at humane societies where they are usually “euthanized,” i.e. killed (especially roosters who are often not permitted by many municipalities because of noise).
5. Death?  How will old or sick chickens be cared for and their bodies deposed?  Many backyard chicken enthusiasts are left with the emotionally difficult and ethically challenged task of killing.  It may be rationalized as kindness and euthanasia at this point in the chicken’s life, but she was brought into the world by humans to be used by humans who will kill her when they are done with her.  Some have ethical concerns about this.
6. The environment.  Chickens eat, produce waste litter and need to be kept warm.  On average, according to the USDA, chickens each produce 20-30 pounds of litter per year.  Say we have a city with a housing density of 100,000 homes.  Everybody has 6 chickens.  100,000 x 6 x 20 pounds = 12 million pounds of litter a year.  Where does it all go in urban environments?  This may sound ridiculous if there are only a few dozen households who keep chickens, but the intention of the enthusiasts is that everyone should get their eggs this way.  Chickens also eat grain which must be grown somewhere – this is especially important in northern climates where they must also be kept warm.  Grain and energy used for no other reason than to provide a food that is not necessary, but rather a desire.  This points to an ethical question of the use of resources, urban health, waste management, etc.
7. Some vegans refuse to eat eggs from backyard chickens because it perpetuates the idea that the use/exploitation of non-human animals is acceptable.  Eating eggs says that it is OK to eat eggs, it is OK to keep chickens, it is OK to use others for our desires.  This is something many vegans would like to change – away from a paradigm of using and exploitation to one of cooperation, collaboration, and mutual respect.

[Carolyn Bailey]

I found it difficult to listen to the continual use of “it” in this podcast. But I guess it shows that even philosophers who consider themselves to understand the ethical ways in which we should relate to other animals, don’t seem to understand that respecting those others is a very important part of that relation.  

I agree with some of what Prof. McMahon says in this interview. For example, I agree with him when he says:

“Those who do encounter the vegetarian argument, find their own practices reinforced by all of those around them. How could it be wrong when everybody is doing it?”

I also agree with his opinion that, (as a nonvegan) eating "roadkill" would not be morally wrong. Particularly when he mentions that humans consume other humans via organ transplants every single day.He says: "There are two ways of getting a human body inside you, one is through an organ transplant and one is through your mouth. Could that make a huge difference? Probably not." And goes on to make a reasonable argument for consuming humans under certain circumstances.  So his argument certainly doesn’t seem speciesist to me.

 He says this, in regard to why humans should not eat others:

“When you come to the point at which you would be ready to kill the animal, the question you should ask yourself is: Would the good that human beings get from eating this animal, outweigh the good that the animal would have in the remainder of "it's" life, if "it" were "allowed" to continue to live. So, what's the good that the people would get from killing and eating this animal? Well, it's a certain amount of pleasure that they would get at the table, but it's not the sum of that pleasure, the difference in pleasure here is the relevance of the pleasure that people would get from eating the "meat", relative to the pleasure they would get from eating some meal that would be derived from plant sources. So it's the increased pleasure that people would get from the consumption of "meat". ... “And you weigh that against what the animal would be being deprived of.”

First, I don’t agree that humans get any “good” from eating another individual. But to weigh up the pleasure humans receive from eating another, with the displeasure that “other” receives by being eaten, is probably not the most morally admirable way in which to decide if we should participate in, and perpetuate the horrific violence, oppression and objectification which occurs in the process of achieving this so called “pleasure”.

He also states that the only problem with eating eggs from hens is whether harm occurs in the process of "producing" that egg. He states that it is possible to "extract" eggs from "free range" chickens without causing them undue suffering and prematurely ending their lives. 

The only problem with eating eggs is NOT whether any harm is being done in the production of the egg. That seems like a poorly reasoned statement. Hens lose a lot of nutrients in the process of laying their eggs, particularly hens who have been bred to lay an enormously unnatural amount of eggs, and the calcium contained in eating their own eggs (particularly the shells) is vital to their wellbeing. 

 

He also says "Animals certainly matter a lot less than your child does"

“The only thing we do in pulling "a fish" out of the water and killing them is truncating their lives (cutting their lives short).”

He also agrees that eating a prawn is insignificant in comparison to eating a primate because of the relative closeness to humans of a primate. “Prawns' lives don't have value.”

I found Jeff McMahon’s comments, as a general matter, in this podcast to be poorly thought through, inaccurate and I think he showed a tendency to be quite anthropocentric.

I’ll listen to it again though, because I think it’s important to question myself on why I think what I do, and whether I could be wrong. 

[Tim Gier]

 

I apologize for not having to respond to these comments earlier, I've been otherwise obsessed. McMahan's views perhaps do not come across in a 16 minute audio podcast in such a way as to do them justice, and that's unfortunate. He's written a very dense 500 page book in which develops a theory of personhood, the harm of death and the wrong of killing. Some of the conclusions his thinking leads to are radical, but it is difficult to find fault with his meticulous argument.

The upshot of all this is is that he doesn't support, in almost any case, the use and killing of other animals for food, clothing, entertainment, etc. He does think that there are certain cases in which medical/scientific experimentation/testing on other animals ought to continue, but he's not speciesist in that regard - he also thinks that certain so-called marginal cases of humans could be used instrumentally without causing any direct harm.

I think that, given the context of this interview - two philosophers talking to what I presume is a target audience of philosophers and other people interested in philosophy - it's not unexpected that McMahan would not specify more fully what he means when he refers to free range hens. From reading his book, I know that his position is that no one ought to cause another unnecessary harm so I take it that when he refers to free range hens he's not necessarily referring to what the industry calls free range hens, but may instead be referring to truly free range hens of the sort that may have only existed in large numbers hundreds of years ago. In other words, he is speaking of a hypothetical situation not to justify any current harmful practice. 

McMahan does think that human life has value beyond that of other animals, but his thinking on that score isn't simply anthropocentric - he doesn't think that all forms of human life have the same value. For example, he thinks that a newborn infant isn't a person and that the death of an infant, while tragic, isn't the same sort of harm (or loss) as the death of 6 year-old. By my reckoning, McMahan uses about 60,000 words in 95 pages to fully explain this position, so I won't be able to do his thinking any justice here, but suffice it to say that infants are not psychological connected to their future selves with a continuity that is the same as yours or mine. Other animals are not either. This is not to say that infants and other animals ought to be killed whenever we please, for any (or no) reason at all. Infants and most other animals have interests, and those interests extend into the future and are connected into the past - their deaths would be a harm to them and we ought not to harm others when we can avoid it. But, we need not make claims about how the lives of infants or other animals are equal to the lives of persons, or that those lives deserve all the same protections in every case.

I know that I am not answering every question or objection that has been raised, but I've already written too much!!! :)

[Carolyn Bailey]

Thanks for the clarification, Tim. 

You said:

"But, we need not make claims about how the lives of infants or other animals are equal to the lives of persons, or that those lives deserve all the same protections in every case."

I understand that Prof. MacMahon doesn't regard other animals or some humans as persons. Does that mean that he doesn't think those individuals value their lives in the same way those he does see as persons do, or simply that he doesn't value their lives in the same way that he values the lives of persons?
What criteria does he use to determine who is and who isn't a person? 

[Carolyn Bailey]

I found this interesting, in regard to Jeff McMahon's interview: http://www.faithinterface.com.au/bioethics/is-eating-meat-morally-w...

This was also prompted by his interview, notably the comments: http://philosophybites.com/2010/06/jeff-mcmahan-on-vegetarianism.html

[Tim Gier]

Hi Carolyn,

I've only read McMahan's book The Ethics of Killing once (although I will re-read some of it now) so my account of his views is likely to be inaccurate to some degree and certainly incomplete, however, I will do my to answer your questions in a way that I hope is faithful to McMahan's project.

Does that mean that he doesn't think those individuals value their lives in the same way those he does see as persons do, or simply that he doesn't value their lives in the same way that he values the lives of persons? 

The short answer to the first part of this question is: Yes. McMahan doesn't think that all living beings value their own lives in the same way; the second part of the question hasn't got a short answer!

Why does McMahan say that not all living beings value their lives in the same way?  Let me begin by describing a living human who is not a person on McMahan's account.  A human baby prematurely born at 30 weeks, say, will certainly be phenomenally conscious to some degree.  To say that she is phenomenally conscious is to say that she has mental states that include or consist of information about internal and external conditions and that that information is available to her such that she can act on it according to her own beliefs or preferences.  So, the baby may be in a condition of hunger (an internal condition) and she may cry and seek out her mother's breast in response to that hunger, or the baby may be exposed to painful stimuli, the injection of a needle perhaps (an external condition), and try to move away from it.  This is a very rough account and coincides roughly with what we commonly call sentience.

However, this baby does not necessarily have any sense of self, as we understand it.  That is, it is not necessarily the case that she is aware of herself as distinct from the world, or aware of herself as one among many.  That she responds to external conditions does not mean that she understands them as external - to her, hunger and a needle injection are both conditions that she responds to but that doesn't mean necessarily that she conceives of them as originating from different places, or that she conceives of them as originating anywhere at all.  She experiences them but she need not have any thoughts about what they are or why they matter.  Moreover, she may not have any meaningful sense that who she is in the very moment of experience is the same entity who existed in a previous moment; she may not have any meaningful sense of moments yet to come.  Now, as a being existing in time, she is likely to have some connectedness from moment-to-moment: hunger lasts and pain persists.  But for her, for how long does hunger last and pain persist?  Does she experience hunger or pain "in the moment" without any sense that a moment ago she was also in hunger or pain, or does she have a sense that she was hungry then and that she is still hungry now?  How far back into the past does her memory reach and if she projects into the future, how much of a future does she project into?  These are not easy questions to answer, but I believe that McMahan's view is that it is clear that whatever connections of mental states through time that a prematurely newborn infant may have, those mental states are not connected to her past or her future to the same degree or with the same complexity as would be a 30 month old child's or a 30 year old adult's.  For example, it is not at all likely that she experiences anguish or dread about what she may or may not experience in the future.

This answers the second question you’ve asked (What criteria does he use to determine who is and who isn't a person?): A person is an entity whose mental states are connected and have continuity through time, with a degree of complexity such that it warrants one saying that one is the same entity now as at some other time.  In this context, the human organism in which a person comes into being is not the same thing as (is not identical to) the person herself.  The organism that is the premature baby is not the person who will, in normal circumstances, come into being.  (To illustrate this difference, McMahan uses the example of a statue made of brass: The brass is one thing, the statue formed from it is another.  The statue would not exist without the brass, but the statue is not the same thing as [not identical to] the brass itself.  The statue could be destroyed and yet the brass could remain; the opposite is not true: to destroy the brass would be to destroy the statue.  The human organism is like the brass, without which there could be no person, but just as the brass isn't identical to the statue, the human organism isn't identical to the person.)  Whatever the premature baby is at the time of her birth, she is not yet a person.

Because she is not yet a person, she cannot value her own life in the same way or to the same degree that a person can.

Which brings us to the second part of the first question: How does McMahan conceive of the value of life?  As one might expect, his two part answer is complicated.  First, there is a sense of the value of life in terms of what some call experiential welfare.  That is, life has value because of the experiences one has in life, according to which one's life fares ill or well.  On that account of value, it may be true that one life is better than another, for those whose lives they are.  It makes sense to say that one who is born into a life of poverty, sexual abuse, and that leads to a premature and violent death had a life that was less good for them than the life we might suppose that Steve Jobs enjoyed.  Second, there is a sense of the value of life that doesn't depend on the experiences within any life: however well or badly one's life goes, the value of life is unaffected because, on this account, the value of life "is determined by the nature of the subject of the life - by the particular properties and capacities that make that individual the kind of thing that he or she is" (pg 241).  One might call this value an individual's intrinsic worth.  Persons, in McMahan's view, have intrinsic worth and are therefore to be respected.  Non-persons, including fetuses, the severely congenitally retarded, and most other animals haven't the same sort of properties and capacities as do persons and thus, they are not due the same respect.  However, living beings that are non-persons have interests in their lives and those interests exist in, through, and across time, albeit to varying degrees.  Because they have interests, we ought not to ignore those interests in the absence of compelling reasons or necessity.

A premature baby can experience harm, so, experiences can be harmful for her.  But, a premature baby can be harmed even if she cannot experience that harm.  There is a loss suffered in death, even if one cannot appreciate that loss; there is a harm done in killing, even if the one to be killed cannot conceive of it.  The premature baby hasn’t a sense of what she would lose in death, because she hasn’t a sense of what the future holds for her.  Death is not a harm for her in the same way that death would be a harm for a 30 month old or a 30 year old.  However, a premature baby still has interests with respect to what she experiences.  Just as normal healthy 5 year old children have an interest in breathing in proper levels of nitrogen even though they have no idea what nitrogen even is, a premature baby has interests.  In recognition of those interests, it would be wrong, in almost every case, to cause harm or death to a prematurely born but otherwise normal human baby.   McMahan extends this same reasoning to other-than-human organisms as well.  Even though most other animals are not persons, most other animals have mental states that are connected in, through, and across time at least to some degree.  Those mental states have a degree of continuity and complexity such that other animals do not exist solely in the moment.  Other animals lose something in death; to kill them is to cause them harm.  Some animal organisms – like a human fetus or a Bluefin tuna or a Rhesus monkey – haven’t the kind of mental states or connectedness between those states such that persons co-exist in those organisms.  Most animal organisms will never have persons that co-exist within them.  But, McMahan contends that we can recognize that fact and yet still recognize that non-persons can experience harms that are harmful for them and that even though there are harms to them that they may not understand, it would still be wrong for anyone to cause them harm unnecessarily in the absence of compelling reason.

McMahan's views may not sit well with one who holds that all other animals have the same moral right not to be killed that all humans have.  His account does lead to the conclusion that it is more wrong to kill a human person than it would be to kill a human non-person or non-human non-person.  His account leads to the conclusion that most other-than-human organisms have no, and have no natural potential to have, persons co-existing in them.  According to McMahan, our interactions with non-persons are to be guided by the morality of interests while our interactions with persons are to be guided by the morality of respect.  Whether these views sit well with proponents of equal moral rights for other-than-human animals or not, the challenge for anyone who would disagree with McMahan is not to simply say that he is wrong, but rather to first, fully understand his views and second, find where his arguments go wrong, if they go wrong.  That's a formidable challenge, not the least because his treatment of these issues is so thorough and so rigorous.  I am sure that I've not done him justice.