A Modest Proposal: Why Not Now?

Copyright © 2008 by Joel Marks

The animal issue is first and foremost a moral and social issue. … the law is there to protect property interests. As long as the movement fails to shift the focus to abolition, veganism, and rights as a moral and social matter, we can expect that the law will continue to protect animal exploitation. We must understand that if there is going to be any progress, we must change the political playing field. And we can do that only through building a base in favor of abolition, which requires that we focus on the importance of veganism as the indispensable element of a movement that is concerned about justice. – Gary Francione

Three centuries ago the satirist Jonathan Swift made a “modest proposal” to help relieve poverty by selling children as meat. I would like to make a more modern proposal that we forgo eating meat entirely. Of course this is not an original idea; nor is it intended satirically. (Nor is it modest!) To be more precise, what I have in mind is veganism. This differs from the more familiar vegetarianism in two respects: (1) Vegans refrain from eating not only animals but also animal products, such as milk and eggs, and (2) vegans avoid using non-food animal products as well, such as wool and leather. In this essay I will address (1), but my comments could be applied to (2) as well.

The rationale for veganism builds upon that for so-called ethical vegetarianism. Vegetarianism is ethical when the reason for it has to do with consideration for other animals, specifically, the ones that human carnivores eat. A person can be a vegetarian for other types of reasons, typically having to do with the health of the human eater. For example, animal fat has been implicated in heart disease, so a diet consisting only of vegetables and grain would presumably be better for you in that respect. But the ethical vegetarian is thinking more about the effect of humans’ eating meat on the well-being of the nonhumans who are being eaten. In the past this concern had to do mainly with the slaughtering of animals, but today the focus is even more on the exceedingly cruel and cramped manner in which food animals are raised for their entire lives on factory farms.

But half-an-hour’s research on the Internet and a moment’s reflection on the implications thereof will demonstrate that ethical vegetarianism makes no sense if restricted to not eating animals. For the treatment of animals in the factory-production of milk, cheese, eggs, and the like is just as inhumane as the factory-production of meat. And that treatment includes even the slaughtering of the animals; consider, for example, the likely fate of the hen once her egg-laying capacity diminishes below a profitable level, and the fate of the cocks who are not needed to produce more hens. Hence on grounds of both anti-cruelty and anti-killing one is led inevitably to veganism.

You might suppose that veganism would also follow from health-vegetarianism since, for example, harmful hormones could end up in milk and eggs as much as in beef and chicken. True enough; hence the so-called organic movement. However, similar concerns apply to vegetables and grain, since all modern farming is based on the widespread use of artificially manufactured and introduced chemicals. So the organic movement is not really allied with vegetarianism, not to mention veganism; it is instead a food market for animal products, including the animals themselves (i.e., meat), that have not been exposed to “unnatural” chemicals.

Veganism, therefore, is an ethical concept. And that is a problem. As a general rule, people are not particularly motivated by purely ethical or moral appeals. (So much for my efforts as an ethics educator? But what I really mean to say is that moral reflection is probably not sufficient to make us moral persons, or the persons we want to be, although it could sometimes be necessary or helpful.) Oh, the occasional drought or tsunami will tug on the heartstrings enough to make us open the purse strings, and being confronted by some particular and local hardship suffered by family, friend, or neighbor can bring out the best in us. But by and large our motives have a non-moral character. And this is especially the case when a moral motive comes up against a basic appetite, such as hunger, pulling us in the opposite direction.

Veganism doesn’t have a chance when you go to the supermarket. You are surrounded by tasty foods of every conceivable variety, healthy and unhealthy, with narry a vegan item to be found. And the ones that do exist, if you can find them or have the time to locate them, may not bring out the Pavlovian dog in you. Tofu prime ribs, anyone? If the store were filled with giant images of cows and chickens being abused and slaughtered, you might avoid some items. More probably, you would simply avoid that store. So make it illegal to market animal products anywhere? Fine: unless you happen to live in a democracy, where the populace is not likely to support such legislation except at a relatively cosmetic level, such as the recent Proposition 2 passed in California that will give chickens room enough to stand, turn around, lie down, and fully extend their limbs. Isn’t that wonderful? But the hens will remain confined for their entire lives; and even these minimal standards will not be required until the year 2015 ... by which time, the chicken industry will have relocated to another state!

Nobody wants to torture and murder animals, human or nonhuman (except a few nuts and evil characters, of course). And the vast majority of people would like to be moral and ethical, I’m sure. So the trick is to align our everyday motives with our natural, or at least our best, tendencies. And one way to do that is to make it easier, even enjoyable, to be moral. Not too easy since we don’t want to become morally slack; for example, it’s not really moral to tell the truth if your reason is that you’ll be caught and punished if you lie. But Aristotle for one did consider virtue to be both habitual and pleasurable. And by the way, my recommendation would apply even with an alternative account of moral motivation. For suppose that we humans were indeed morally motivated in large part. It would still be the case that since so many concerns tug on our moral attention and time, we simply have to prioritize them; thus, meticulously avoiding harm to other animals could well lose out to, say, providing basic necessities for one’s family.

Enter my bright idea, my immodest and thoroughly entrepreneurial proposal (which occurred to me while I was taking a shower, so I hope it’s not all wet.), to wit: a chain of vegan grocery stores across the land (and, ultimately, the world). There are already some organic foodstores, but, as noted, these are usually not even vegetarian; furthermore, they tend to be upscale, not to mention few and far between, and hence not useful to most consumers; hence also they are not much help to the other animals. There is also a handful of vegetarian and even vegan restaurants around, whose proliferation I would certainly encourage. Indeed, I keep suggesting to the students in my university’s hotel/restaurant school that a fortune awaits the founder of the first vegan fast-food franchise. But people cannot eat out for 21 meals a week. That is why I propose a nationwide chain of vegan grocery stores to make the desirable product readily and affordably available.

An obvious objection will occur to the capitalist: doesn’t my suggestion put the cart before the horse? For you need demand in order to have the needed supply, but I’ve got it reversed. In other words, where will the consumers come from to convince a bank to extend the capital for such an enterprise in the first place and then to assure long-term profitability? My response is twofold. (Well, threefold, since first I will point out that a true animal-rights person would not want the cart to come after the horse anyway!) The grand scale of the project is precisely what will entice vendors to create the needed variety of tasty foods to stock the shelves and hence entice customers, and the larger market for the suppliers would help make vegan food more affordable because of the economy of scale and greater competition.

Secondly, the marketing potential is huge. I can easily imagine a two-pronged effort. There would of course be the standard moral appeal along the lines of, “Do you know where your hamburger really comes from?” But I would supplement that with a more upbeat approach, such as: “I don’t eat vegan because I love animals. I don’t eat vegan because it’s good for me. I eat vegan because it tastes good!” Saturate the tele with ads of those sorts and in a matter of months it will be as uncool to frequent a regular supermarket as it now is to light up a cigarette.

There is in fact an abundance of tasty and nutritious vegan cuisine, especially if one counts the international scene. Somebody needs to bring it all together, that’s all, and present it in a manner that appeals to the average consumer in a given locale and circumstances. For the citizens of my country, this might mean dumbed-down and convenient, with a dash of showmanship thrown in. For example, in my state we have a popular chain of dairy superstores, where animatronic barnyard animals entertain the children while the parents shop. Just replace that with a store full of animatronic wild animals, and abundant stocks and varieties of animal-free foods and groceries.

One of my “pet” peeves is the complex manner in which vegan nutrition is typically broached. These stores could perform a great public service by having sections dedicated to the three meals of the day and, within each section, several sets of foodstuffs – maybe a different set for each day of the week, not to mention, varied tastes -- arranged as recommended packages, which, together with the packages from the other sections, would assure one’s daily nutritional needs. In this way the busy consumer would not have to become an instant nutritionist in order to embark on the vegan path, where one wants to be sure that the moral choice is also the prudent one for oneself and one’s family.

Naturally there would also be free samples, prepared foods and meals, maybe an in-store eatery. A community room would allow for appropriately themed seminars offered by guest speakers: vegan cooking classes, nutritional tutorials, showcases for animal sanctuaries, and so forth. I could also see eventual inclusion of an “alternative” clothing section, etc.

It seems to me that the way a dream becomes reality is to make it happen. So: “Build it and they will come.” Why not now? What are we waiting for?

For information on becoming a vegan, check out my Website, "The Easy Vegan."

No Exit

by Joel Marks

Published with the title "Suicide should be a choice available to all" in the New Haven Register on July 21, 2009, page A6

It is with relief that I learned of the suicide of British orchestra conductor Edward Downes and his ballerina/choreographer wife Joan Downes. Married for 54 years, they were inseparable in death as in life. They had chosen to die together because Joan was suffering from terminal cancer of the liver and pancreas, and Edward had become increasingly dependent on her assistance because of his own encroaching blindness and deafness. He was 85, she 74 when, in the company of their adult children at the Dignitas clinic in Zurich, they drank a fatal concoction that put them into a peaceful, permanent sleep.

To me, a philosopher, their death summons up the very image of Socrates drinking the hemlock in his prison cell. Although this was his execution in dismal circumstances, he did have the option of escape into exile from Athens. In a sense, then, his death was a suicide. He chose it because he thought it would be ridiculous for an old man like himself to try to run away and hide from death, when he believed there was nothing to fear about an afterlife. He had led a full life; the mode of his death would be painless and quick; he was surrounded by good friends; and, even though his particular case may have been a miscarriage of justice, he had principled reasons for abiding by the laws of the city-state that had nurtured him his whole life. Thus, as poignantly depicted in Plato’s Phaedo, Socrates boldly and cheerfully met his end.

But it is not because of that association that the news of the Downeses’ suicide brings me some measure of peace as well. Rather, it is the knowledge that such an option exists somewhere in the world. The right to end one’s own life with assistance from others is strangely denied to most of us.

We usually hear the argument against assisted suicide that an industry of death would inevitable arise, which, for economic reasons, would put undue pressure on old or ill or impaired people to end their lives prematurely. We would be made to feel guilty about burdening our loved ones with the responsibility of taking care of us, and about the good fortune we would be denying them by spending their potential inheritance on our own prolonged care. Ultimately the government would get in on the act, pointing to those who lingered as a main drain on the budget, thereby crimping other social goods, such as education and health care for the young.

There is certainly truth to that. But what follows? To me it is not obvious that all of those reasons for feeling guilty are inappropriate. Furthermore, we should consider the alternative. As things stand now, there is a massive industry of life … of often long, pointless, even painful life … which surely saps the economy and good will and welfare of all as much as any industry of death would.

And on top of that is the misery of those lingering lives for the sufferer him- or herself, as well as the low-level anxiety that shadows all of us throughout our younger years when we happen to contemplate the “No Exit” sign society has posted at life’s door.

As I now am at an age where close contemporaries are dead or dying, I am acutely aware of the prospects. I hope that I shall be so fortunate as to be able to choose the timing and mode of my death when its imminence is made known. I would like to leave all my good friends and loved ones with a memory of a fully-functioning, independent, and contented fellow. I would be very happy to know that I am able to provide for some of them in death as in life, rather than squandering my assets on some corporation to warehouse me in despairing boredom. And I would like to treat all of them to one final, all-expenses-paid holiday in Zurich, which they will retain in lifelong memories, while I remain to check in to the Dignitas clinic.

Whose Environment Is It?

by Joel Marks
Published in Philosophy Now, Issue No. 66, March/April 2008, p. 33.

A peculiarity about the contemporary discussion of the proper human treatment of other animals is that, when the topic is broached at all, it often falls under the rubric of environmentalism. No doubt this is an unintended consequence of the otherwise welcome prioritizing of an “environmental crisis,” which was highlighted in a recent issue of this magazine (issue 65). It is peculiar nonetheless because it begs a rather key question: whose environment is it? The word “environment” has its roots in the notion of surrounding. We humans are ensconced in an environment that surrounds us, and other animals are surely a part of that. But every living being lives in an environment, so humans are a part of the environment of other animals. When we speak of the environment, I suspect that the unspoken assumption is that it is our human one. I doubt that most people have even considered the possibility that there could be others. The current use of “environment” therefore appears to be largely egocentric in a species sense, or in a word, anthropocentric.

That environment is a relative notion can be appreciated with the help of a concept coined by the late perception psychologist J.J. Gibson. Gibson developed a theory of ecological optics (and ecological perception more generally) to counter the idea that perception is a purely subjective phenomenon. Perception, he held, is an objective relation between an organism and its environment. This is brought out more particularly in what Gibson called affordances. Thus, an apple of a certain color affords picking and eating, a doorknob affords grasping and turning, an automobile affords driving, and so on. But of course those examples are from the human environment, and even a particular sort of human, who is technologically aware, etc. For a deer the automobile affords mainly getting out of the way of, and for a worm the apple affords burrowing into (and also eating), and for a bird the doorknob may not even be noticed other than as a glint of light. So to speak of the environment as the habitat of other animals risks masking a substitution of our environment for those of the other animals.

This suggests an even deeper ambiguity in what we mean by “our.” When we speak of “our environment,” do we mean the human one, or the animal one? After all, humans are animals. Obviously placing the discussion of other animals under the rubric of environmentalism delimits “our” to the human. But was this a conscious decision based on good grounds, or simply an habitual thought pattern based on unexamined assumptions? And what are the implications and consequences of such a division between humans and other animals? It seems to me that the whole plight of other animals, that is, their mistreatment at human hands, could be due to this very division.

Perhaps “environmental ethics” was not the happiest term to begin with. Suffice it to say that the main idea environmentalists typically mean to convey is that all animals or even all life shares a single planet, such that we are completely interdependent for our survival and thriving. For that matter, all animal life is in interaction and interdependent with the inorganic world as well: this is as obvious and immediate as the elements of which we are composed, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the neighborhood hillside we quarry, not to mention global warming. Thus, we modern people need to have greater respect for the whole world that surrounds us and not treat it solely as our private gold mine or our garbage dump since doing so distorts our true relation to reality and hence puts us in peril.

That is surely a compelling idea, but a person who is concerned about the proper treatment of all animals (not to mention, all life) cannot be satisfied with such a view insofar as the anthropomorphism of “the environment” remains a possible implication. For then it would still be the case that other animals are seen in their relationship to us but not vice versa. It is our survival and thriving which would remain the touchstone of what is right and wrong. This is apparent in, for example, the “environmentally friendly” organic foods movement, which is far more likely to tout the human health benefits of detoxified animals than to display any deference to the animals’ welfare. Thus, according to Peter Singer and Jim Mason’s new book on The Way We Eat, the milk and cheese and eggs and meat in “natural foods” stores are just as likely to be the products of pain and suffering and premature death, just as deceptively disguised, as the food in the supermarket; this is because the treatment of the animals will still conform to minimal standards dictated by economic competitiveness. In this way animal issues can become hijacked by an anthropomorphic environmentalism, with animals conceived as just another “sustainable resource” for human use, well-being, and enjoyment.

Meanwhile, might it not be mainly wishful thinking, or some kind of extra-scientific faith in an all-good providence, that “what’s good for humans is good for the other animals”? This is an empirical claim, despite its intuitive appeal. Therefore we cannot simply assume that there is a pre-established harmony in this best of all possible worlds, such that humans would never be called upon to make a genuine sacrifice for the welfare of other species (or vice versa). Frankly, I find the harmony hypothesis as questionable as the theological one that an all-good God exists. It also falls prey to the Achilles heel of any consequentialist theory of ethics, which would base the rightness of actions and policies on the goodness of their outcomes, since it is well-nigh impossible to predict the total (i.e., relative net) long-term consequences of anything.

Instead, and in essential agreement with ethicists like Paul W. Taylor and Tom Regan, I submit that all sentient and perhaps all living beings merit respect as ends-in-themselves, regardless of our interdependency. Certainly facts about our interconnections, just like other contingencies, will be relevant to deriving specific moral recommendations and injunctions. But the underlying principle will have to do with the intrinsic worth and dignity of the respective beings -- perhaps of all existence or existents, analogous to the way God looked down upon every created thing and deemed it good -- and not with their place in somebody else’s, and specifically the human, environment.

Turning the Tables: We Matter Because We Are Animals

by Joel Marks

Published in Philosophy Now, Issue No. 67, May/June 2008, p. 37.

Recent times have seen an ever-increasing interest in our similarity to other great apes and ultimately to all other animals. While sometimes this research has been motivated by sheer interest, it also forms a backdrop to a heightening moral concern about other animals. Following the same logic as earlier efforts (mainly philosophical) to establish human uniqueness by distinguishing us from other animals (for example, Aristotle took us to be the rational animal, and Descartes highlighted our language ability), this new research program seeks to establish the opposite thesis of the moral considerability of other animals by demonstrating their similarity to us. Sometimes the similarity is found at the genetic level, where human and animal genomes turn out to be much more like than different. At other times the similarity is found at the everyday level, such as the sentience, emotions, and even cognitive abilities we share with many other creatures. Such common characteristics are taken to warrant according other animals the same kind of (or a similar) moral regard and treatment that we owe to our fellow humans.

But while thus well-intentioned, the new program is, I maintain, just as misguided as the earlier one, and for two reasons. First is that all animals, ourselves included, matter “in themselves,” that is, for being whatever they are. Other animals do not, any more than we, require demonstrating their similarity to any other animal in order to possess their own intrinsic value. Just as surely as a human is a human is a human, a mouse is a mouse is a mouse. Why would anyone have thought that a mouse needed to be human in order to merit moral consideration? In part no doubt this attitude is attributable to simple bias or narcissism or arrogance; it is an extension of egotism to think that one’s kind -- however that might be identified, whether by race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sex, sexual orientation, etc. ad inf., and in this case by species -- is superior to all others.

But a more reasoned explanation can also be given. Morality is sometimes thought of as a kind of contract whereby one’s security is buttressed by agreeing to certain constraints and obligations owed mutually to and by others who are similarly vulnerable. Thus, since we all can be harmed by others, we agree not to harm one another; and since we can all benefit from the assistance of others, we agree to aid one another; and so forth. But obviously an agreement of that sort can only be entered into by beings who are as rational and otherwise cognitively endowed as we humans are. Therefore our moral concern extends only to other humans. There is nothing to be gained by keeping a promise to a mouse; for even if the mouse could benefit, it has no way of reciprocating.

However, if morality is not a business deal but is conceived instead as arising from the relation between moral agents and other beings who have intrinsic worth or dignity, then there does not seem to be any obvious reason to deny moral regard to beings just because they happen not to be capable of being moral agents. In other words, there could be so-called moral patients (as Tom Regan calls them), whose status is determined not by their being moral agents but by something else.

Any pet owner understands this implicitly when it is a matter of what kind of care is owed the animal who lives under her roof. One does not feed one’s cat only out of kindness but also obligation (or the kindness may itself be one’s obligation). If the cat fails to “return the favor” and maintains her aloofness, one is not justified to ignore her or dump her into the river … no more so than if your child did not thank you for the meals you prepared for her day in and day out. Perhaps one gets pleasure from observing the cat’s behavior; but this mere accident of one’s interests is not a sufficient account of one’s responsibilities to the cat, even if it might explain why one purchased or adopted her in the first place.

Another way the intrinsic valuing of the pet is revealed is in, for example, an American’s reaction to the eating of dogs in other cultures. What seems wrong about that consumption is precisely the treatment of the animal merely as a means and not an end-in-itself. It is exceedingly curious, then, that humans, Americans or otherwise, feel no obligation to the pig, an equally intelligent and lovable animal, whom they not only eat but treat, or allow to be treated, cruelly its livelong days until its mercifully premature (and gruesome) demise. The moral worth of a being should depend on the nature of the being and not on our attitude towards it. (I made an analogous point about the nature of other beings and our interdependency in the last issue.)

The second reason I reject the moral pretensions of any research program that seeks to discover human traits in other animals is that it gets the direction of dependence (somewhat) backwards. For it is not that other animals matter insofar as they are human-like but rather that human beings matter because we are animals. The “something else” I alluded to above that makes a being morally considerable is, it seems to me, that it has interests, that it cares about things, that it values certain things. We might put it this way: a thing matters insofar as things matter to it.

Admittedly that slogan trades on an equivocation between “mattering” in the moral sense and “mattering” in the psychological sense. But I think there is wisdom in sensing a meaningful equivalence underlying this equivocation. It is because the cat cares about eating and staying warm and not being stepped on – because she values these things, because these things matter to her -- that the cat has some kind of purchase on a being, such as we are, that is capable of responding to her concerns. I do not mean to say that any valuer is thereby entitled to be given whatever she wants – only that her being a valuer gives her the right to have her values considered by beings that are capable of doing so.

To complete my argument: so far as we know, the only valuers are animals, and all animals are valuers. Therefore animals move to the center of what ethics is all about. The discussion of nonhuman animals turns out to be, not some special issue of “applied” ethics, but rather part of ethics’ core (we human animals are the rest of it). I would say, then, that ethics is animal ethics.

Capital Punishment Deters Crime: Therefore What?

Copyright (c) 2007 by Joel Marks
Originally published with the title “No justification for death penalty” in the New Haven Register, June 26, 2007, page A8

Killing people saves lives. That seems to be the conclusion of recent studies of the effect of capital punishment on the murder rate. According to Associated Press (June 11), “between three and 18 lives … would be saved by the execution of each convicted killer.” One study estimates that the moratorium on executions in Illinois resulted in 150 unnecessary deaths of citizens in its first four years.

The scientific community has not yet subjected the cited studies to thorough scrutiny, but they have garnered enough preliminary respect that, for the sake of what I have to say, I will grant that they have shown the effect they claim: capital punishment deters murder. It still does not follow that capital punishment is justified. Not by a long shot. Why not? I think the most telling fact about these studies is that they do not consider whether the executed convicts were actually guilty!

It is obvious, is it not, that being “found” guilty of something is not the same as being guilty of it; juries can make mistakes and condemn the wrong person. And that is not merely a logical point. The Innocence Project, for example, has helped win the exoneration of 15 persons on death row by means of DNA testing.

The issue here is part of a much broader one of long standing, namely, whether a practice or policy is warranted by its consequences. In simpler terms: does the end justify the means? Here is why the answer is “No.” Suppose the government wanted to put an end to murder once and for all and it knew that capital punishment is a deterrent. The recent studies also suggest that the more speedily the punishment is meted out, the more dramatic its deterrent effect.

Why not, then, simply round up hundreds of derelicts all over the country where there are unsolved murders, try them and convict them quickly in kangaroo courts, and then execute them? Whammo – murders plummet! But this would be wrong to do, would it not? Therefore, effects do not by themselves justify anything.

After all, our society does not believe in chopping off the hands of convicted thieves even if it could be proved that this would reduce the amount of theft dramatically.

Or think about it this way. Suppose your child desperately needed an organ transplant, as did four other young people in adjoining wards. It turns out that there is a healthy young person walking by the hospital whose body contains all of the needed organs in fine working condition. Why not just pluck her off the street, remove her organs, then dump her body in the morgue? The results would be that five young people get to live their lives rather than just one. But it would be wrong to do this, would it not?

Thus, how we think about capital punishment has implications for other important issues as well. Consider torture. Here too there is controversy about whether the practice is even effective, since people being tortured may be as likely to give false information as true. But, again, let us grant the claim that it is effective and efficient. Still we might oppose it on other grounds.

As the United Nations Convention against Torture puts it: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture” (Article 2). Why not? Because torture is a violation of “the inherent dignity of the human person” (preamble), not to mention, as with capital punishment, the victim may be innocent or unconnected to the matter of concern.

Interestingly, the very reason our country has tried to sidestep the prohibition on torture is to counter yet another egregious example of employing barbaric means on possibly innocent persons in order to achieve one’s ends: terrorism.

Can two wrongs -- indeed, the same wrong --possibly make a right?

The Singer Diet

Copyright (c) 2007 by Joel Marks
Published as “Book makes case for thinking about what we eat” in the New Haven Register, May 16, 2007, page A6

America’s slaughterhouses kill 10 billion animals every year. Think about that. That is what philosopher Peter Singer asks us to do in his new book, The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter (Rodale, 2006). Co-authored by former farm boy Jim Mason, this book demands a strong stomach to read. It is not often that a philosophy book informs you that an important “factor relative to global warming concerns cows burping and farting” (page 206). By the same token, you are not likely to learn from the typical book on animal husbandry that our treatment of nonhuman animals for food rivals anything in Dante’s vision of hell.

It is important that we expose ourselves to this kind of shock treatment. It is a morally necessary antidote to the deceptive depiction of wholesome livestock lives foisted upon us by the food industry. Nevertheless Singer and Mason’s book goes about its business in a non-sensational way by reciting the facts and holding up the arguments on both sides of each issue to critical scrutiny. The book also has an inviting narrative “hook,” introducing us to three families and their diets and then tracing all of the food to its source. But the contrast between what ends up on the dinner table and the manner in which it arrived there could not be more extreme.

The book contains surprises. While reviewing the production of veal, the poster child of animal cruelty in the popular consciousness, the book reveals that most mammals in the food chain are treated about as miserably. But the real shocker turns out to be poultry. Nine billion of the animals slaughtered annually are chickens. Those who “Enter the Chicken Shed,” a four-page section of the book, are advised: “May be disturbing to some readers.” If you have a human heart, you cannot read these pages without resolving to change your food shopping habits. And the chickens’ conditions of living are if anything worse than how they die. Even the eggs you buy in the supermarket are in most cases the product of lifelong cruelty almost too painful to imagine empathetically.

It did not use to be that way. The chief culprit is factory farming, the thoroughgoing mechanization of food production from animals for speed and efficiency. The result most noticeable to the consumer has been cheaper meat and poultry and fish and eggs and dairy products. But the toll of animal misery has also been increased to the limit. According to Singer and Mason, “The core issue is the commercial pressures that exist in a competitive market system in which animals are items of property, and the conditions in which they are kept are not regulated by federal or state animal welfare law” (page 55).

Therefore it is we, the consumers, who must act so as to change the direction in which these pressures push. The virtue of the market system is that it is indeed sensitive to demand. There is now every reason to demand that all animals be treated humanely in the production of food. This is not just a matter of a healthy diet, although there is that too. It is first and foremost a moral issue. The amount of animal suffering brought about by modern methods of food production could well rival and indeed surpass all of the evil perpetrated by humans on other humans. Add to that a concern for treating workers fairly and protecting the environment, and the case is complete.

Meanwhile the solutions could turn out to be surprisingly simple. “The idea that we need high levels of protein was disproven in the 1970s, and health authorities reduced recommended protein intakes to about a third of what had been thought to be required” (page 227). Thus, simply eating less is one way to reduce the demand for factory farming, not to mention address obesity and heart disease. The book is filled with other practical suggestions and food sources to make the transition to an ethical diet feasible. And, yes, their final recommendation is a vegan diet of plant-based food exclusively.

For more information on becoming a vegan, check out my Website, "The Easy Vegan."

Why Are We Here?

Copyright © 2000 by Joel Marks
Originally published in Moral Moments: Very Short Essays on Ethics (University Press of America, 2000)

"The prescriptions needed by a doctor in order to make his patient thoroughly healthy and by a poisoner in order to make sure of killing his victim are of equal value so far as each serves to bring about its purpose perfectly." -- Immanuel Kant (trans. James W. Ellington)

This observation from the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (section 415) was brought home to me in a rather striking way at my university. No, we don't have mad poisoners lurking about, but there did come before the Faculty Senate a most peculiar-looking document one day last term.

It is standard academic procedure for a proposal for a new course to come before the Senate for faculty review. On this occasion the agenda informed us that the Department of Fire Science wished to offer "FS 409: Arson for Profit."

I don't recall if nary a snicker emanated from the august chambers (actually, a dilapidated classroom), but there certainly was no commotion. The matter was dealt with in routine fashion, for the course appears to be a sound one for the program.

The content has to do with detecting and prosecuting this particularly vicious brand of white-collar crime. As the course description states, "The investigation of arson for profit requires that a large amount of data be collected from various sources. None of the data means anything unless it is properly organized and presented. Investigative techniques such as link analysis are used to interpret data obtained from studying fire behavior, motives, lab results, and financial records."

Naturally the intended market is persons in careers in fire science and criminal justice. But, in the light of Kant's remark, one may pause to reflect: What is to prevent an individual with incendiary intentions from signing up for this course? The very knowledge that would enable a police investigator to detect arson would help an arsonist to avoid detection.

Of course precautions might be instituted, such as a criminal background check before admitting anyone to the course. But Kant's point in citing his case was perfectly general: Any knowledge has the potential for good or evil.

We may therefore, with Kant, draw the conclusion that skill in means is not enough to make someone an ethical agent ... however effective an agent they may be. There must also be reflection on ends, on the purposes to which we apply our skill.

Perhaps the most stark and chilling example in modern times of the failure to do this is the crematoria of Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps. Using their technical knowledge, engineers and other professionals worked constantly to increase the destructive capacity and efficiency of the gas chambers and ovens that obliterated millions of innocent human beings.

But we need not look to the past or to Nazism to find this emphasis on "how" over "whether" to do something; it is everywhere in our own society, even right here in Connecticut -- from the technicians manufacturing weapons of mass destruction that would dwarf World War II, to the tax accountant and computer programmer helping the local supermarket magnate bilk the government ( = other taxpayers) of millions of dollars.

A running joke in my ethics classes, which are typically taken as part of the university's "core curriculum" outside the student's major field, is for me to pose the philosophical question, "Why are we here?" and for a student to answer, "Because it's a requirement!" Seldom would a student -- not to mention a professor -- raise that question in a course in the student's major field. The assumption is that the student has his or her reason(s) for pursuing that field, for example, employment opportunities, higher salary, career advancement, lifestyle.

But in a class like ethics, it seems fair to turn that assumption into a question: "Do you have good reasons for pursuing your chosen field?" For example, "Have you considered a different career path in that field (not to mention, a different field altogether) which perhaps promises greater benefit to society, if somewhat less financial benefit to yourself?"

The real answer, then, to the perennial question, "Why am I here (in this ethics course)?" is, "To raise the question, `Why are you there (in your other courses)?'"!