From Free Life No 24, December 1995

I ALSO EAT MEAT - BUT.....

Paul Anderton

In the last issue of Free Life [No. 22, April 1995], Martin Ball asserts his right to eat meat, apparently unmoved by animal suffering. But his affirmation is too strident to be wholly convincing and contains, or implies, errors and omissions of both fact and logic.

To begin, let us drop the distinction between humans and animals. Humans are one of many animal species; and I will henceforth call "animals" "members of other species" (MOOS). This being so, to invent the notion of "rights" and then restrict it to one species makes no sense. The observable differences between humans and MOOS lie not in the nature of Creation or the Universe, but are an effect of several coincident evolutionary developments - walking upright and so freeing the forepaws for extensive tool use, and the development of brain function, particularly language with the concurrent ability for complex concept formation.

Now, one of the main planks of libertarianism, and civilisation itself for that matter, is that anybody can do what they like with themselves so long as they do not interfere with the rights of other people to do the same. What Mr Ball's attitude amounts to is that this restriction is applicable only to relations between humans, and that MOOS can be completely disregarded. What the "animal rights" people contend is that this is no longer defensible (even supposing it ever was).

My own view is that there is both justification and exaggeration in both positions. The "we humans can do what we like with the world and anything in it" attitude is traceable back to the obviously false Christian view that "God" created the world for the use and pleasure of Man. The only alternative justification for this attitude is a thoroughgoing assertion that "you have a right to indulge whatever you can get away with doing - after balancing the advantages and disadvantages for oneself only".

Let me illustrate this by supposing that a psychologist, interested in the moral dynamics of choice and worried about world population growth, kidnaps people at random. He forces them into a laboratory and tells them to press one of two buttons, red or blue, or be shot. The red button, each subject is told, will set off a bomb destroying his house and his beloved pet dog and rabbit. The blue button will set off a bomb destroying a Chinese shirt factory complete with those working there. What choice does the subject make?

Well, it's a fair guess that the "purely altruistic" choice of being shot would be a rare one for subjects from any "normal" population. So the choice is effectively between the red and the blue buttons. As the house and its contents may be all the subject's possessions, to say nothing of the dog and rabbit - and there are so many shirt factories and Chinese that a few dozen would hardly be missed - it's a fair bet that pressing the blue button would be the preferred choice.

Some will think this wrong - that human life is worth more than property of any MOOS. The problem is how to persuade people to agree when there is a clear personal benefit from not doing. This is a problem for education and social organisation; the libertarian basic solution being that interactions between individuals are on an agreed basis of mutual benefit rather than being based on power or status relationships or, as in the case imagined above, conditions that some participants are totally unaware of. But what do we include or exclude in the class of beings whose interests or benefits are taken into consideration? The human criterion is certainly not applied universally and without question, because some humans such as "mental defectives" criminals and, in some places, adherents of certain political or religious views are specifically excluded from the "rights" to liberty, and even life.

Let's start again from somewhere else. Purposeful activity is the seeking out of conditions for indulging pleasant "feelings" and avoiding those producing unpleasant ones. But these feelings do not just arise; nor are they put there by "God" to be indulged or not according to His rules. They appear because they are biologically significant, since indulging pleasant feelings and avoiding unpleasant ones tends to promote the survival of the human species.

Such a mechanism is almost certainly present in other higher mammalian species. Of course, this cannot be proved. On the other hand, it cannot be proved that other human beings have similar feelings to onself; and in fact this is often denied of other races, almost universally of "criminals", and very often of adherents of unfashionable political or religious views - usually as a prelude to withholding "rights". In the broader sense though, it is extremely unlikely that such a phenomenon - the experience of subjective "feelings" has appeared only in one of the later developing species.

It is likely that any significant differences in the quality of feelings have intellectual causes - in particular the anticipation of future events from knowledge of the past. Human beings are the only species to recognise the inevitability, and the causes, of death. This results in a lot of confusion in the MOOS rights discussion. It is, for instance, quite incorrect to say that MOOS "fear death". They don't understand it; but they have in general to avoid, either instinctively or by some learning process, circumstances that might result in their death before they have reproduced. That is the basis of natural selection. But MOOS don't need anything like intellectual appreciation of death or reproduction for the process to work, and indeed they haven't any. It is therefore totally incorrect and misleading to talk of MOOS having "instincts" for self preservation or reproduction. They have behavioural tendencies which do in fact generally favour individual survival and reproduction, but that is all. In particular the notion that individual survival or reproduction is in any way the "purpose" of MOOS behaviour is completely mistaken.

So killing MOOS for food is not objectionable in principle for any reason comparable with human feelings about human deaths.

The deliberate induction of what is by any account physical or emotional distress in MOOS is another matter which deserves deeper consideration. Any idea that basic "feelings" such as fear, or physical contentment, are specifically human is wrong. It would imply the sudden appearance of these non-intellectual abilities in the most recent stages of evolution which is incredible. The "MOOS rights" argument boils down to whether this matters or not so far as our relationship with MOOS is concerned.

Much human effort is given to satisfying trivial desires - fashion or entertainment or "sport". The "animal rights" supporters cannot see how these justify the infliction of physical or emotional distress on MOOS. And this is surely a view which deserves to be considered seriously.

Failing the "special cosmic importance of human beings" argument, the alternative justification boils down to simply asserting that one has a right to get away with whatever he can get away with. This seems to be behind Mr Ball's remark that he doesn't care what happened before his food got on his plate and that the only serious consideration is reduction of costs. But this is a very dangerous argument to rely on because there is no argument against applying the same principle to YOU!

It is foolish to suppose that market mechanisms are the only legitimate basis for judging actions and that the results of such actions are of no legitimate interest to either the participants or outside observers. In particular the precondition that there is some rough equality of knowledge and influence between the paries to a trading agreement for it to be legitimate must be seen to exist. This is necessary for there to be the likelihood of mutual benefit from the activity which is, after all, the original justification of trade in contrast to conquest and pillage.

So far as this applies to MOOS, I certainly continue to eat some of their dead bodies. My concern with what happened before they were dead is, I must admit, somewhat casual. But I certainly do not regard this as a virtue on my part. It is really just another example of my general moral laziness and lack of imagination which is also the explanation of my casual attitude to the treatment of human beings by other human beings in Bosnia, Burma, India, South America, and all the other nasty places. Some people are evidently prepared to "do something" about these places, and I hope they succeed even if their motives are sometimes dubious.

In short I give rather ineffective and mostly passive support for the "humanising" (can that really be the right word?) of the treatment of both humans and MOOS. I would not object to price increases due to the "humane" treatment of MOOS but would not go on any marches or other demonstrations in its favour. I would object if my tax money was being used to pay police to remove demonstrators from the path of livestock transporters. I hope we can eventually develop food technology that will let us do without meat.

Meanwhile I think the "traditional" farmers got it about right. They provided reasonably comfortable and humane (that word again) conditions for MOOS but when it came to killing them, were not sentimental.