Diet choice is a moral choice

I went to a meeting of people who want to fight hunger here and throughout the world.

I want to see our religious communities--and all of us who strive to be moral beings--consider the moral arguments relating to what we eat. If we come together to address the problem of hunger, it seems fair to raise the point that a much more efficient use of natural resources will mean fewer hungry people. The limited amount of natural resources, (land surface, aquifer water and fossil fuel), available for planting, watering and fertilizing crops can feed more people when we eat the grains and other plants directly rather than process them through the bodies of animals such as cows, pigs, various kinds of birds, etc.

If we want to feed more people and we are coming up against limits on natural resources involved in food production, then we must be interested in finding the more efficient sources of nutrition.

In the large group I saw that night, no one said that they knew of a moral argument related to what we eat. I think that this question of whether we use our precious life-sustaining resources efficiently, (so that fewer or no people are left wanting basic nourishment, and so that wildlife and biodiversity are not needlessly destroyed), is a moral question. We should choose a more environmentally friendly diet-style over a less environmentally friendly diet-style. Our times demand it. The fact is ecosystems can support large populations of plant-eaters, but only small populations of animal-eaters. We need to respond intelligently and morally to the reality of our situation.

Another moral argument related to what we eat would be that we exploit beings as things when we mechanize animal agriculture and intensify confinement systems: more crowding, more abuse, more fetid, miserable conditions, more pollution. We've demoted beings to the status of commodities. Treating a being as a thing is tantamount to slavery. It is wrong.

Do we want a culture of tolerance, mutual respect and non-violence? We can bring ourselves closer to creating this reality by developing a deeper respect for one another's person and psyche. We must recognize others as individuals who are not objects but who are subjects of their own lives. They are not means to our ends. They are ends in themselves.

We sometimes come to know members of other species as individuals. We see their unique personalities. We feel a concern for their interests and well-being. But at the same time, we prefer not to consider the fact that there are creatures held captive on our behalf in stifling, fetid, miserable, oppressive conditions that we do not want to know about. These animals are themselves unique individuals; subjects of their own lives--not objects to be used by us as means to our ends. We take their lives, after oppressing them interminably from the first day of their conscious existence … all so we can use the flesh of their bodies to trigger certain taste and texture sensations on our palate.

Where is the sense of outrage?


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