Utility monster meat farming

Suppose that:

1. Intense pleasure is very good in itself

2. Consequentialism applies to non-rational animals.

Then here is a modest proposal: Have all feedlot animals outfitted with electrical stimulators of brain pleasure centers. Sufficient stimulation of pleasure centers can outweigh the pains that the animals suffer in the feedlot, and indeed can hedonically (and also with regard to desire-satisfaction) beat the pleasures of a happy life on the range. The animals may not live very long lives in that setting, but this shorter length of life could well be outweighed by the intense pleasure that they will enjoy. It seems like a win-win: there are more happy non-rational animals and we have more yummy meat for rational omnivores. It seems to me that utilitarian vegetarians whose vegetarianism is based in concern for the welfare of the animals—rather than, say, ecological worries—should support this proposal.

Perhaps, though, the repugnance some people may feel at the modest proposal gives evidence that the proposal is a reductio of the conjunction of (1) and (2). I myself deny (1): I do not think empty pleasures have any intrinsic value, even in non-rational animals. (That said, even if (1) is false, intense empty may still be very instrumentally valuable as a pain-killer which might yet provide some consideration in favor of the proposal.) I am also somewhat dubious about (2).

Natural Law and the epistemology of permissions

It is hard to know that something is permissible, because an action is permissible provided that no moral consideration is decisive against it. Thus, it seems, to know that an action is permissible requires surveying the infinite set of all possible moral considerations and checking that none of them rules out the action.

But natural law ethics provides a handy shortcut:

1. Actions characteristic of a kind of being are permissible in relevantly normal circumstances.

Principle (1), for instance, makes it difficult to defend strong versions of antinatalism or of ethical vegetarianism by conferring a default permission status on reproduction and the eating of meat, since we are organisms (and hence characteristically reproduce in appropriate circumstances) and omnivores (and hence have a characteristic diet that includes meat).

The natural permission principle shifts the discussion from the question whether a given action type, characteristic of us humans, is generally permissible, to the question whether the circumstances at hand are relevantly normal. Thus, (1) still leaves open the possibility of an antinatalism that holds that things are so abnormally bad that it’s wrong to reproduce, or an ethical vegetarianism on which global conditions require us to forego meat.

Subscribing to principle (1) also explains the incredulous stare I see on students’ faces when I explain Andrea Dworkin’s view that heterosexual intercourse is always wrong.

Permissibility of the natural

The usual way to argue that an action is permissible is to argue that the arguments against the action’s permissibility fail. But it would be really nice to be able to give a more positive argument for an action’s permissibility. Sometimes one can do so by showing that the action is obligatory, but (a) that doesn’t help with the permissibility of non-obligatory actions, and (b) often an argument for the obligatoriness of a positive action presupposes the action’s permissibility (e.g., the obligation to kill a dog that is attacking one’s child when no other means of defense is available presupposes the general permissibility of killing dogs with good reason).

Here is a place where Natural Law (NL) can provide something quite useful, namely this principle:

1. If A is a natural action, then normally A is permissible.

This principle could, for instance, be used to generate intuitively compelling positive arguments for such controversial theses as:

2. It is normally permissible to eat animals.

3. It is normally permissible for us to reproduce.

4. It is normally permissible for us to prefer those more closely related to us.

In addition to Natural Lawyers, theists in general might have reason to endorse (1), on the grounds that our nature comes from God.

Of course, there is always going to be a difficulty in determining whether the antecedent of (1) is true.

Non-theistic non-NL theories are unlikely to endorse (1) except as a rule of thumb. And it will be an interesting explanatory question on those theories why then (1) is true even as a rule of thumb.

NYT's why it's ethical to eat meat contest

The New York Times is having an essay contest (600 words, April 8 due date) on why it's ethical to eat meat.

I think the challenge is somewhat poorly defined. The challenge seems to be to argue for the thesis that it is morally permissible to eat meat when this is not necessary to human survival.

But what does the thesis mean? If it means that in all cases where human survival is not at stake it's permissible to eat meat, the answer is uncontroversially negative. For instance, when you've made a promise to a vegetarian friend not to eat meat today, it won't be permissible to eat meat on that day.

But if it means that in some cases where human survival is not at stake it's permissible to eat meat, that thesis is not particularly controversial. For instance, a typical philosophical vegetarian is unlikely to dispute that it can be permissible to eat meat from non-conscious species (worms?), accidental roadkill when doing so does not encourage further killing, or meat from a predator which one killed in the defense of one's (at least equally cognitively sophisticated) pets.

If, on the other hand, the thesis is that it's permissible to eat meat under typical circumstances obtaining in our culture, then we have to get into a messy discussion of the particular methods of meat farming in our culture, and that's the sort of discussion the contest wants us to avoid.

Eating animals and the existence of God

Consider the following thesis:
(*) It is permissible to kill an animal primarily for food only in special circumstances such as where other food is not reasonably available, affordable or sufficiently nutritious.
According to (*), there is a presumption against killing animals for food. If (*) is true, then everyday meal situations for middle and upper class people in Western countries are not going to count as "special circumstances"--other nutritional sources are available to us. I shall also take it that if it is impermissible to kill animals for food apart from special circumstances, it is also impermissible to buy parts or wholes of animals killed for food, again apart from special circumstances.

I think (*) is false. I also think that if (*) is false, then theism is probably true. In this post I will do two things. First, I will summarize an argument for (*) by Andrew Tardiff (published in Faith and Philosophy, some time in the 90's, I think). Second, I will show that some theists have a way out of this argument. Third, I will suggest that probably this is the only way out, and hence if (*) is false, then probably theism is true.

Tardiff argues that (*) is true because it is bad to destroy highly organized entities without proportionate reason. Animals, especially higher animals, are highly organized. Our survival would count as a proportionate reason for destroying an animal. But our gustatory preferences do not count as a proportionate reason, nor do the minor inconveniences of preparing nutritious vegetarian meals count. Special circumstances that do not obtain for us in the affluent West these days would be needed to justify eating animals. Tardiff is a Catholic, and neatly harmonizes his view with the Christian tradition which permits eating animals by saying that eating animals is not intrinsically wrong, and indeed was permissible in past centuries where it was more difficult to get adequate nutrition apart from animals. (I am going by memory here, but I think I'm faithful to Andy's paper.)

But there is an answer available. Suppose that non-human animals live for our sake and were made for us to eat. Certainly, it seems natural for us to eat animals, and if God has coordinated all of nature, it would be plausible that he would have made it natural for the animals to be eaten. On such a view, it is a telos of some animals' lives to be food for humans. Such a view is coherent, and there are aspects of the Christian tradition that imply it. Unless one has disproved this kind of a hierarchy of life view, one has not shown that it is wrong to eat meat under ordinary circumstances. (I can't remember what, if anything, the paper says about this sort of an answer.) In fact, on a view like this, not only is there no presumption for vegeterianism, but there is a presumption for eating meat--if it is one of the telê of the life of a deer that it provide humans with food, we have prima facie reason to fulfill that telos.

And I think something like this is the only objection available. For if it is not a telos of a boar to be eaten by humans, then to kill a boar for human food, apart from special circumstances, is to do a harm to the boar--its death is contrary to its telê on this view--without proportionate reason. Thus, unless it is a telos of at least some animals to serve us, even to the point of our eating them, (*) is true. Granted, there are also some consequentialist considerations--maybe there would be fewer individuals of some species if we didn't raise them for food--but these probably aren't going to amount to a good defense of the negation of (*).

Thus, probably, if (*) is false, then it is a telos of some animals to be eaten. But, probably, the only way that the benefit of one species can be the telos of the functioning of another is in cases of reciprocity, e.g., in symbiosis, unless that telos has a source in the plan of some agent who arranged the system. But reciprocity need not hold for humans to be permitted to eat animals under ordinary circumstances. There may be some reciprocity with domestic animals, but I think we should likewise deny (*) in the case of wild animals. It seems implausible that there should be a biologically-mandated telos in deer and boars that they be eaten by humans. Thus, the telos in question has a source outside the biological system.

Moreover, a merely extrinsic telos, e.g., a purpose that an agent has for the entity, will not justify the killing of animals for food. For instance, that we bred some set of animals for food does make the feeding of us be an extrinsic telos of them, but is not itself sufficient to justify our killing them, because an extrinsic telos of an animal does not affect what is good or bad for the animal. (That my parents had some purpose for my life does not constitute it as being good for me to fulfill that purpose, though I may have reasons of gratitude or prudence to fullfill that purpose.) There is no presumption in favor of acting in accordance with an extrinsic telos: I can equally well use a sword for fighting as for a plowshare.

Thus, in order to justify our ordinarily eating animals, their telos to be eaten by us needs to be an intrinsic telos. But the only account available of a non-biological source of intrinsic telê is the account that God, who is the Ground of Being, can determine which essences, and hence which telê, are instantiated.

Thus, probably, if (*) is false, God exists.

Hence, most middle and upper class American atheists should be, for consistency's sake, vegetarian. A number, of course, are.