Ethical
'If man's aspirations towards right living are serious ... he will first abstain from animal food because ... its use is simply immoral, as it requires the performance of an act which is contrary to moral feeling - killing.' The Ethics of Diet, Tolstoy.
But are humanity's aspirations serious? We often claim to have attained the highest level of consciousness of any living creature on earth. Whether this is true or not - and it must be open to doubt in view of the mindless, institutionalized cruelty of our factory farms, vivisection laboratories and the torture of our own kind in prisons around the world, it is certainly true that we have become the guardians of this planet and of all its life forms. So, with all our faults, we must try to behave as responsibly as we can.
Is factory farming a responsible way to behave? Even the most recalcitrant meat-eater can hardly deny that cruelty and suffering are inherent in it. In an attempt to divert attention away from their own doubts, which often stem from the fear of having to change, such people launch into debates about how much pain animals can suffer compared with humans. But this is irrelevant. If we agree that suffering is bad, and that animals do suffer as a consequence of our actions, then it doesn't matter how much they suffer but that they suffer at all. So we must change our actions or stand condemned of callousness.
Nor is it good enough to support the theory but fail to support the practice: 'They pity, and they eat the objects of their compassion.' (The Citizen of the World, Oliver Goldsmith, in Collected Works, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1966.)
'If a boycott is the only way to stop cruelty, then we must encourage as many people as possible to join the boycott. We can only be effective in this if we ourselves set the example.' (Animal Liberation, Peter Singer.)
'A vegetarian diet is the acid test of humanitarianism.' (Tolstoy.)
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