If you eat like the average american, then in the past 10 years you have eaten 1 cow, 5 pigs, 10 turkeys, and 260 chickens. Every year, the human race kills 56 billion livestock animals. Is all this death necessary? Is it just?
Because you are reading an article online, I assume you are not an eskimo or a desert nomad. You most likely live in a country where you can get the nutrition you need without eating meat. Since it’s unnecessary to eat meat, it’s unnecessary to kill livestock animals. If killing them is unnecessary, then what is the moral justification for doing so? I can’t think of one. If you do, let me know. But I’ll warn you, plenty have tried and failed.
The first defense sounds like this. Farmer Joe lets Bessie the cow roam around green pastures and gives her a nice soft bed of hay to sleep in. Bessie’s life is great until Farmer Joe quickly and painlessly chops her up for lunch. How could anyone object to such humane treatment of a cow? Even if Farmer joe treats her well, Bessie can still feel pain. If she couldn’t, then we wouldn’t object to her torture. But if Farmer Joe released a video of himself slowly driving a knife through Bessie’s chest, we would call him a terrorist. That is because we know that it is wrong to cause suffering to livestock animals. In most senses of the word, killing is a way to cause suffering. Since eating meat is unnecessary in modern society, killing animals is causing unnecessary suffering. If killing Bessie causes her unnecessary suffering, I don’t think “humane” is the best word describe it.
Some argue that if it’s wrong for a human to kill a cow, then it is wrong for a wolf to kill a deer. And since it is obviously not wrong for a wolf to kill a deer, it is not any more wrong for a human to kill a cow. But does it make sense to hold an amoral creature accountable to moral standards? Of course not. A wolf doesn’t consciously kill a deer in light of the moral consequences. It acts on its instincts and has no moral obligations to avoid killing a deer. But humans are moral. We act on reason, not instinct. Therefore, we can only hold other humans to a moral standard, not other animals.
Still, some say that because animals lack morality, it wouldn’t be wrong to kill them. If that’s true, then why wouldn't Farmer Joe keep Bessie locked in a crate and feed her slop? After all, it’s easier. But our actions toward livestock animals do have moral implications. Bessie’s lack of morality cannot justify her death just for a burger.
Finally, it is sometimes deemed hypocritical for one to condemn killing animals yet have no problem killing plants. If we shouldn’t kill animals, then we shouldn’t we respect all life and not kill plants? Plants, however, lack consciousness and a nervous system. They can’t suffer, but livestock animals can. While all life matters, there is only a moral obligation to avoid cruel treatment toward beings with the capacity to suffer. It is senseless to claim that one can’t eat plants if they don’t eat animals.
I’m not saying all this to condemn you. If you want to keep eating meat after reading this, fine. But as the superior moral race, it is important for us to justify how we treat animals of other species. Let’s have a thoughtful discussion on animal rights instead of pretending that they don’t exist.
