New York Times article by a former vegan

[cufflink]

I thought this article, "The Enigma of Animal Suffering," which appeared a couple of days ago in The New York Times, might be of interest. It's by a former vegan who now has a blog titled "Let Them Eat Meat."

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... suffering/

As you'll see, his main question is: Is exploitation objectionable if that exploitation is not experienced as harmful?

Some readers had great responses to his arguments. In the Comments section, click on Readers' Picks to have the almost 700 comments sorted by most-recommended first.

[Twizelby]

It looks like a more eloquently worded common argument diatribe. I don't understand why there is a difference between cruelty and slaughter for the author. But I think that this is a slow drift. Every meat eater I know says "I don't support factory farms" even though they buy it. This represents to me acknowledgement of the first concept that needs to be grasped. Animals are sentient and should not be abused.

[brimstoneSalad]

Some readers had great responses to his arguments. In the Comments section, click on Readers' Picks to have the almost 700 comments sorted by most-recommended first.

Did they ever.

I want to highlight a few of them.

Mr. Southan's short bio describes him as "a former vegan." I have noticed a trend among those who "return" to being omnivores to feel a great need to explain themselves. I don't know if that's to appease a guilty conscience, or to justify and feel righteous about their choice in much the way they probably did when choosing to be vegan. Perhaps better than trying to create some great justification for one's choices, just let them be that, one's choices as an imperfect human, which is what we all are, and leave it at that.

I don't know if Southan is just ignorant, or if he's trolling for press. His brief disclaimer at the end suggests the latter:

but if animals’ ignorance of their own exploitation is our excuse to exploit them, we have a bullet to bite: We have to endorse exploitation for ourselves so long as we’re blissfully unaware.

I suspect that he didn't explain what this means by design, while fully understanding its implications, because it undermines his entire article, and he knows that the majority of readers won't understand what this means or bother to think about it.
Or maybe he overestimates the intelligence of the readers, and the whole thing is a joke?

There is a possibility that he wrote the article at an earlier time not realizing the implications, and then edited it later to add in this footnote (and if so, that's a good defense for its existence), but otherwise it seems very disingenuous.

That is assuming he's not indoctrinated with the notion of Randian 'ethics', in which case this might be a legit belief that it's fine to farm human beings as long as it doesn't affect others... which would be his only defense for that kind of perspective.
If he actually agrees with the arguments he's presented, that's much worse than trolling, and is very hard for me to believe.
In that case I would wonder if when he gave up veganism, assuming he was vegan for more than a few days just to be able to claim to be an ex-vegan (that seems to be pretty common), if he threw his sense of ethics out the window too and started with something else (like a the turn to Randianism).

All very bizarre.

There's not a lot of philosophical sophistication in Southan's argument. "It’s not the exploitation in itself that’s objectionable, then, but that the exploitation is experienced as harmful." In other words, as long as an individual is unaware that he is being exploited then that exploitation is morally acceptable. Really?

This principle clearly legitimizes exploitation not only of animals, but also of human beings under a variety of conditions. For example: 1) if a human is severely mentally handicapped, such that he is unaware of his circumstance; 2) if a human is comatose or is intentionally drugged and kept in a permanent unconscious or semi-conscious state; 3) if a human is fundamentally deceived about the purpose to which his life is being put.

Given the acceptance of Southan's three premises, then apparently the "domination and control" and even the eating of human beings under any of the above conditions is legitimate. (And, yes even the second premise--that the beings in question wouldn't be able to figure out that they are being used for food-- would hold of humans in the cases we specified).

So not only do we not have to worry about animals, but as long we minimize the suffering of other human beings, we can happily eat them too! Is that really what you want to argue?

This is to put it lightly, and in a more indirect sense than necessary.

Southan's line of reasoning clearly justifies raising fully functioning human babies to be killed as young children or adolescents, harvested for organs and meat for donors, provided they were killed painlessly without being told what was going on.

It's possible that Southan wouldn't have any problem with this. Either that, or it all seems like a pretty big troll.

There simply is no good reason for people to eat animal flesh. To suggest that it is justified because it is a tasty experience is an incredibly self centered and greedy justification. Clearly, meat eating is less efficient than plant eating. It is environmentally and economically advantageous for people to be vegetarian.

Should it matter that a sentient animal is slaughtered in a painless and unknowing manner? Yes. Because that animal has been deprived of further experience of the wonder of life. And that is why we consider killing a person in a painless manner in their sleep to be murder. You have robbed them of everything they have. The situation is not different with non-human sentient animals.

The "killed in our sleep" argument is morally on the dot, but legally incongruous, since citizens have legal protection from being killed (murder is a legal term); although it poses no problem to killing non-citizens in their sleep, or another class of people (e.g. slaves, or human livestock, or the otherwise disenfranchised, who are not citizens).

More ridiculous mental gymnastics to try and justify the unjustifiable. God, this is frustrating. Here is where your entire house-of-immoral-cards falls apart: humans do not NEED to consume animals. On the contrary, it's bad for your body, the environment, and (obviously) the animals. Even in this platonic state of farming you describe, which by your own admission, doesn't exist, there is still SOME degree of suffering by animals where there need not be any if we didn't eat them...unnecessarily.

These here's-how-we-can-eat-meat-and-not-feel-bad-about-it "think" pieces are actually more offensive than the silliest redneck bumper stickers.

They are more offensive, particularly because they're coming from such an eloquent perspective.

All most people take away from this kind of thing is that they feel they have a new justification to eat any kind of meat without guilt because somebody seemingly argued in favor of eating some kind of meat with what appears to be rationality, and something that superficially resembles logic. The real logic is in the conclusion, the bullet we'd have to bite, but I'm afraid most people would miss that since it's just a footnote.

Also, the author likely realizes the chances of any significant percentage of the world's meat supply coming from as yet nonexistent "animal-welfare paradise farms" is nil. So why even bring it up if not to be obscurantist?

He might also be trolling. Which may be slightly better, but not by much.

[...]consider the humans led into gas chambers being told they are going to the shower. Was that being humane?
Mr. Southan is deluding himself, perhaps to make himself feel less guilty about returning to meat-eating.

Great point.
One has to wonder how much Southan bothered to learn about the holocaust before rejecting the comparisons.

Nazis did their best to keep them ignorant, and hopeful that something good was coming, to keep them compliant and working hard. This is just good policy on the part of death camps, or farms.

I am a meat-eater, eating less and less of it, but I find I cannot defend my choice. My eating meat is done only because I like it, which is a lousy defense.

I respect it when people can be honest. This kind of statement shouldn't be as rare as it is.

As you'll see, his main question is: Is exploitation objectionable if that exploitation is not experienced as harmful?

He may think that's his question, but he doesn't know what harmful means, or, really, what the utility of moral objections really are- because half of the battle is with regards to implications, which he seems to wave off with half a line about biting a bullet without explaining in any detail what exactly that bullet is, or that it's live ammunition loaded into a hair triggered gun with the safety off at the time of said attempted biting.

Rhys Southan is probably just trolling here for press. It's hard to believe he thinks that's OK to farm people like that. Nothing inherently wrong with trolling for media attention, but when it's harming animals and the environment by encouraging complacency? That's not good.

Maybe he thought people would see the last line for what it is, discrediting the argument, and have a laugh... but if that's the case he's really overestimating the audience.

[Volenta]

I always cringe when I hear the term 'former vegan' in context of a meat defending article... Wonder whether they are really sincere, or just didn't really understand the ethical implications in the first place.

[Kanade]

"Is it safe to assume that a cow raised for food suffers the same general humiliations, agonies and frustrated drive for freedom that a human slave or victim of sexual assault or genocide does?"

Well yeah, otherwise we wouldn't be opposed to it now would we?