Animal Rights

Apr 05, 2006

I ate meat today. It was largely anti-climactic - I went to the store and purchased a very small amount of chicken, fried it, and ate it. The flavor was mediocre, despite an experienced meat cook helping me with the seasoning. He agreed that it was not exciting meat.

I thought a lot while chewing the strangely textured stuff about the animal behind it, the muscle, the feathers, the bone. But these thoughts were fleeting, I can easily see how one can just eat it and forget about it.

Did this animal suffer? Does it matter? When I was 17, I had a notion that animal rights were meaningless, because without self awareness, pain was nothing but a mechanical response like a rock tumbling down a hill. I used this to justify my consumption of meat. I realized very easily the hypocrisy in vegetarianism that avoids taking lives of animals but pays no mind to the conditions of factory dairy farms, but it took time for me to realize that this hypocrisy doesn't change the validity or non-validity of an argument for animal rights.

Much has been said about animal rights, many arguments waged on either side. People much more eloquent than I have spoken at length on the issue, arguing it subtly and effectively from multiple angles. I find myself still grappling with two primary questions, which are at the core of the issue:

1. Is it true that humans should endeavor to reduce the suffering of living beings on earth?
2. Is veganism an effective way to do this?

The first question is one I dispute less, but one which is still disputable. Some "farming" practices are obviously abhorent to me, but what about animals raised in reasonably good condition? People in this country are usually only aware of the notion of "factory farming" from the shock images of organizations like PETA. They regard the proponents of views as extremists, and conveniently ignore their arguments because of it. Most peoples' direct experiences of farms come in the form of educational farms that are not viable businesses without the support of schools, but which practice first-rate animal husbandry. Anyone who has driven by a meat packing plant and inhaled knows how far this is from the industrial production of meat. I'm not going to argue whether animal suffering should be avoided here; see the afore-linked Animal Rights FAQ for many an argument and counterargument in favor, or carnivegan for (admittedly much weaker) arguments against.

But suppose we agree that suffering should be reduced. How do we best go about doing it? Oren Leaffer pointed out this S.F. Chronicle editorial on the fuel consumption of meals. The gyst of it is that the energy consumption, fossil fuel usage, and waste that goes into the simple task of bringing even a vegan meal to the table is huge. Take this and the latest research on climate change which demonstrates the accelerating feedback loops of warming produced by melting permafrost (releasing huge amounts of trapped carbon) and arctic ice (creating light-absorbing water from light-reflecting snow) point to a coming disaster larger than any ever seen on earth. Evolutionary scientists these days point out 6 or 7 mass extinctions in the history of our planet, all of which were influenced by climate change (either directly or indirectly). It may be that a New Zealand apple will hurt more animals than a side of beef, if that beef was grown locally.

Likewise, are petroleum-based synthetic fabrics or soil-draining cotton fabrics any more sound ecologically than leather and wool? If we are really concerned with minimizing suffering and maximizing happiness, shouldn't we concentrate on these questions? How and where you drive a car may be more significant than any choice. Is there a difference between animal rights and ecological footprint?