Meat-eaters cannot rationally justify their diets This is a call to rationality. This is a demand for evidence, facts and science. This is a plea for the truth. And given our state of affairs, we're in desperate need of a healthy dose of the informed problem-solution paradigm. Step one: stop ignoring reality. Here's a brief state of the Earth: millions are dying needlessly from starvation; climate change and environmental degradation are both real and intensifying; and heart disease is the No. 1 killer of Americans. In short, affluent nations are killing themselves with unhealthy diets, while the periphery dies because of lack of diets, and the global environment is collapsing around us. There are many approaches to dealing with these problems, but most proposals are feel-good Band-Aids on deep, structural bullet wounds. We must change the structure of our social organization. We must develop a fair and ethical distribution of resources. We must get our priorities straight. The alternative is both unethical and suicidal. This is where the animals come in. According to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, nearly 10 billion animals are slaughtered for consumption in the United States every year. That's more than just a number of deaths; billions of animals are born into carefully managed and highly limited lives that serve two purposes, and two purposes only: the profit motive, and your taste buds. These animals share several relevant characteristics with human beings. All of them have central nervous systems. All of them form complex social relationships, including familial affinity and hierarchal social organization. All of them are capable of interpersonal interaction. No scientific analysis disputes their subjectivity. It's my position that we should substantially reduce our meat consumption because it is simply the most ethical option. I'm working based on the critical assumptions that you want to be ethical and you are rational. If you don't meet these requirements, you're just a bad human being. Cultural acceptance of meat-eating and personal pleasure are not valid excuses not to re-examine your diet. Slavery made life easy for a lot of people and was accepted by most everyone. That did not make it morally permissible. Convincing you that animals deserve your moral consideration, and that you should not cause them to suffer for your personal desires, requires that we agree on what moral theory we're working with. You could be a utilitarian, a Kantian deontologist, or an I-do-what-my-holy-book-tells-me non-thinker. Each of these requires a slightly different strategy on my part, but I'll do my best to deal with all three. There are numerous oft-ignored Bible quotes supporting vegetarianism, and other religious texts show similar support. Daniel 1:3-16 tells the story of Daniel visiting the king of Babylon. Daniel and his friends refused to eat from the king's table and were allowed to eat vegetables and water for 10 days, after which they appeared healthier than the other diners and were allowed to continue their diet. A Kantian ought to consider that while our rationality determines who is qualified to generate universal law, it does not delineate the objects of that law. The characteristics we share with animals make them relevant moral patients, even if they don't meet the requirement for moral agency. The bottom line is meat consumption causes more pain than pleasure. It's morally indefensible to hierarchize our pain and pleasure; my pleasure is not more important than anyone else's, even though I might be smarter, richer or more powerful. Pigs, cows and chickens are more self-aware than some human beings, yet they are subject to pain and torture that we would never dream of inflicting on any human beings, no matter their level of cognition. A double standard is defined by discrimination based on an irrelevant difference. Species is not morally relevant. But if you insist upon anthropocentrism, there's an even better argument. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most Americans eat significantly more than the recommended dietary allowance for protein. The World Health Organization reported in 2000 that more than 3 billion people are malnourished, the largest number and proportion in recorded history. David and Marcia Pimentel reported in the 2003 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that the meat-based food system requires more energy, land and water resources than a vegetarian system. Producing one kilogram of animal protein requires 100 times more water than one kilogram of grain protein. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2001, our livestock eat seven times as much grain as we do. That grain could feed 840 million vegetarians. It's just science: the farther down the food chain we eat, the more people we can feed. Unless you're a neo-Malthusian, this is a good thing. Our society is sponsoring a genocide hidden behind a veil of propriety. Civilization has changed the game. Appeals to naturalness, anthropocentrism and nutrition are inadequate to support a meat-based diet. Stop being irrational, stop being apathetic, stop ignoring the evidence. If you want to eat meat, you'd better be able to justify it.
