Utilitarianism asserts that the morally correct action is the action that "produces the greatest balance of benefits over harms for everyone affected" ("Calculating Consequences," Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University). In Chapter 17 of The Omnivore's Dilemma, author Michael Pollan references a book titled Animal Liberation written by Peter Singer. Early in the book, Singer cites a famous argument for the liberation of slaves made by French utilitarianism philosopher Jeremy Bentham, soon after the French had liberated its slaves in 1789, well before the British or the Americans had done the same. Bentham makes a very complicated argument in favor of equal treatment for the entire animal kingdom based on all animals' ability to suffer.
Bentham asserts that all of the animal kingdom is entitled to the same sort of liberation not based on the equal ability to reason or talk but based on the equal ability to suffer. He asserts that the argument of basing equality on equal abilities to reason or talk is absurd since "a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversational animal, than an infant" (as cited in Pollan, p. 308).
Pollan continues to explain that Bentham is "playing a powerful card philosophers call the 'argument from marginal cases'" (p. 308). Pollan explains that the argument asserts that we do not exclude the humans who are marginalized, such as the "infants, the severely retarded, the demented," from the moral imperative that they deserve equal rights even though such marginalized people have lesser mental functions than a chimpanzee. If we do not exclude marginalized people from the right to equality, then the question follows, "[O]n what basis do we exclude the chimpanzee?" (p. 308). There are those who argue that the chimpanzee should be excluded from moral rights on the basis that the chimpanzee is not human. However, Singer points out that that argument of exclusion isn't any different from excluding the slave from moral rights on the basis that the slave is "not white" (p. 308). There are also those who argue, in the words of Pollan, "But the differences between blacks and whites are trivial compared to the differences between my son and the chimp" (p. 309). To counter that argument, Singer points out that society is offended by the idea of discriminating based on something so nontrivial as intelligence even though there are human beings who do not equally posses the same human characteristic of intelligence as other human beings. Therefore, what right do we have to discriminate against animals based on the absence of "this or that human characteristic" even when there are animals that are more intelligent than some human beings? In the words of Pollan, Singer further concludes, "Either we do not owe any justice to the severely retarded ..., or we do owe it to animals of higher capabilities" (p. 309).
This is the argument that convinced Pollan to become a vegetarian. He reflects on the truth of the argument in the following: "If I believe in equality, and equality is based on interests rather than characteristics, then either I have to take the steer's interest into account or accept that I'm a speciesist," meaning one who discriminates against others outside of his/her own species, just like a racist discriminates against those outside of his/her own race (p. 309).
The argument that equality must be based on interests rather than characteristics is a utilitarian argument because it judges moral conduct based on the numbers of individuals the conduct benefits. Since all members of the animal kingdom suffer, basing equality on the fact that no member of the animal kingdom wants to suffer would benefit more members of the animal kingdom than basing equality on the presence of human characteristics would.
Yet, later he asserts that, except in the cases of the factory farm, animal domestication and the things gained from it--milk, eggs, meat--are actually more beneficial for everyone. Domesticated animals are that way because they learned some time ago they would survive better in the care of humans; in their state of domestication, they are living their best lives possible. In addition, refraining from eating meat does not prevent the deaths of animals. As he asserts, "If America was suddenly to adopt a strictly vegetarian diet, it isn't clear that the total number of animals killed each year would necessarily decline, since to feed everyone animal pasture and rangeland would have to give way to more intensively cultivated crops" (p. 326). Therefore, he concludes with the utilitarian argument that continuing in the beneficial relationship with domesticated animals, so long as animals are not made to suffer as they do in factory farms, is the most beneficial moral action and a reason to continue to eat meat.
No comments:
Post a Comment