I recently discovered vegansoapbox.com, a relatively new website that posts news/articles related to veganism. I think it’s a fantastic website because it covers a variety of very intellectual topics. As much as I love drooling over food pics that adorn so many vegan blogs, I really appreciate the more thoughtful, argumentative essays that Vegan Soapbox posts.
One recent post addresses a common response to veganism: that if animals were in our place, they would eat us. I frequently hear varieties of this response–the gist of which is that no other animal worries about the ethics of killing another species. The article does a fantastic job of responding to this answer, arguing that a) our ability to think, reason, and recognize ethical dilemmas is no small distinction, and should not be overlooked when we are grouped with other animals (i.e., if wolves had the same intellect as humans, they might be held accountable for their actions) and, more importantly that b) animals don’t kill each other unnecessarily–they kill because they need to eat. If I lived in a hunter-gatherer (or gatherer-hunter, which is apparently the proper version) society, in which a small number of animals were regularly killed for the group, and where I only had access to native fauna, I would probably not have a problem with eating animals (this coming from someone who has always loathed meat!). But, the fact remains that we are not cavemen. The cavemen (and other earlier cultures) ate meat because they had significantly fewer choices than we did. We, on the other hand, don’t need to eat meat and are so far removed from our foods that we rarely know the process that brings meat to our plate.
Anyway, those are my thoughts…for lots of other interesting ones, check out VeganSoapbox!
How does killing a small number of animals in a gatherer-hunter society get around our ethical obligations not to harm nonhuman animals.
Hmmm…I don’t know how well I explained myself in the post, and to be honest I’m still pondering this issue. The problem I have is with making a judgment on a group of people 1,000 years ago who basically didn’t have a choice whether or not to eat meat; I don’t think it is fair to say that everyone in the history of the world who killed animals for food was immoral. Nor do I believe they were entirely justified: Obviously, humans have done many terrible and inexcusable things to animals. I just don’t feel that I am in a position to judge them.
I do know that today, especially in the west, we do have the resources and knowledge to chose a life that does not exploit animals, and we should not ride on thousands of years of meat-eating traditions as an excuse.
I guess I misunderstood what you said. I thought you were saying that if you were living like a gatherer-hunter you wouldn’t have a problem with using nonhuman animals. I didn’t appreciate that you meant living like that thousands of years ago, when people generally had no notion that what they were doing was wrong.