By Dr. Michael W. Fox

 

At the Animal Rights 2000 Conference, McLean, Virginia, I gave a short presentation that questioned the ethics of promoting global vegetarianism.  I pointed out that in some cultures and contexts it could actually mean more animal suffering if animals were not humanely killed and consumed.  I also pointed out that promoting veganism and using a Western approach to animal rights and protection advocacy in other cultures, though well intended, could be counterproductive and tantamount to ideological imperialism and colonialism. 
 These observations notwithstanding, it was evident at this conference that the promotion of veganism has become a major goal of the animal rights movement and is a fundamental principle for all advocates: If one is not a vegan, one's credibility as an animal rights advocate is in question. 

Seeking ethical consistency between belief and action and being able to 'walk the talk' are certainly admirable standards for any movement of social change. But I wonder if promoting global veganism is the best way for animal liberationists to advance the animal rights movement and prevent and alleviate animal cruelty and suffering.

What we do to make ourselves feel better about our relationship with animals, like becoming a vegetarian, is an ethical decision that many concerned people have made. It has become a central, moral absolute of the animal liberation movement. Moral absolutes can sometimes be derivative, not of any deep ethical analysis, but of a more shallow, albeit sincere combination of rationalism and emotionalism. Moral absolutes can lead to discrimination, and prejudice toward others who do not share the moral fundamentalists beliefs.  For example, if it is bad to eat animals, then all people who are not vegetarians are bad people. 

I see us in danger as a society of fabricating such moralistic self-serving 'values' that are judgmental and far removed from such traditional virtues as humility and forgiveness, and that act to define and divide one group from another, with the net result of increasing social conflict and decreasing moral progress.
 Just as ethics seem to have less and less relevance to the rule of law and the judicial system, so ethics have been divorced from industrial agriculture and other  businesses, and from the operation of various organizations, both governmental and nongovernmental. Instead, self-serving values and principles are substituted for ethics - like productivity, efficiency, and growth. Such principles are the new virtues of a 'progressive' society. But these are false virtues, because their basis is self-serving rather than arising from the ethics of service and self-sacrifice. The ends are variously pecuniary, consumptive, self-promoting, and self-enriching or self-aggrandizing.

 These pseudo-virtues of a progressive, materialistic, consumer society are actually oppressive. They subordinate to self-interest (personal, corporate, political) the ethics and spirituality of a humane society. The net result is a devaluing of humility, compassion, respect for the sanctity of all life, equalitarianism (i.e., giving all sentient beings equal and fair consideration), and benevolence. These are the core virtues and values for a just, humane, and sustainable society.

Based on simplistic thinking, self-interest, and self-righteousness, and lacking a sound bioethical foundation, shallowness pervades much of society and its various institutions, organizations, and movements.  The currency of ethics and spirituality has been devalued in the global economy and world trade, in politics, science, education, and in the agendas of many animal and environmental protection, conservation, and human rights organizations have been devalued. We now have a new currency based on growth, productivity, and monopoly, be the arena economics  (where market-driven economism reigns) or ethics (where moral fundamentalism reigns).

We all need to test ourselves, and examine or test our values, institutions, organizations, and movements to see how shallow or deep we really are. The shallower we are as vegetarians, for example, the less we can accept people in different contexts and cultures killing animals for food.

 

Deep and Shallow Vegetarianism
 A test for ethical vegetarians is their willingness to accept hunting by Eskimos and Amazon Indians; and the humane killing of unwanted calves and cows in India, rather than allowing them to die slowly from starvation and disease. 
The 'shallow' vegetarian sees vegetarianism as an ethical imperative and moral absolute regardless of context or situation. 'Deep' vegetarians see such a  dietary choice as an appropriate ethical decision in certain contexts and situations where the moral imperative is to cause the least harm in feeding ourselves.

 The 'shallow' vegetarian is one who would oppose subsistence killing of wildlife and no doubt would expect, for example, all East Indians to be vegan or at least lacto-vegetarian, in total disregard of the religious and caste-determined alimentary taboos and economic realities of this subcontinent.
 The ethics of vegetarianism that some people embrace seem to go beyond biological and ecological reality, incorporating the mythic vision of the Peaceable Kingdom where the calf and the lion and the wolf and the lamb lie down together. In this vision, both lion and wolf are implicitly vegetarian.  Consequently, many vegetarians who have dogs and cats make these companion animals vegetarian, even vegan.

Westerners who extend their vegetarian ethics to their companion animals need to examine the morality of essentially anthropomorphizing their cats and dogs by making them vegans and providing no source of animal protein in their diets. This can be extremely harmful, especially to cats who are more carnivorous than the relatively omnivorous dog.

 The taboos against meat consumption and killing animals for food in India, which have more to do with caste and personal spiritual purity than with compassion, are imposed on captive carnivores in some Indian zoos (including raptors at the Jain bird sanctuary and hospital in Delhi).  The consequences are dire indeed, ranging from death by slow starvation to severe physical deformities and suffering from nutritional osteodystrophy (a crippling bone disease).

A 'deep' vegetarian would not impose his or her values or judgment on other species or cultures without first being biologically informed, and understanding the complex interdependencies in  human-nonhuman animal relationships in other cultures and economies.

From a deep bioethical perspective, a call for global vegetarianism may do more harm than good to people, animals, and Nature. It is not a panacea for all cultures and contexts.  Is promoting veganism in upper class India, where dairy products are a dietary staple of long-standing religious and caste tradition, better than promoting humane organic and sustainable, small-scale (cottage) dairy cooperatives? The poor and the farmers need cows manure for fuel, plaster and fertilizer, just as the bone and leather industries need cows skeletons and skins, and the starving need the blood, the offal and the flesh of the worn-out sacred cows and their countless malnourished and suffering offspring.

The cow-religion, cow-culture, and cow-economy of India cannot be eliminated, but many Western vegan animal rightists, whose views I sympathize with, would wish it so.  But I have no sympathy with those moralists and idealists who engage in cultural imperialism and ethical colonialism by imposing their shallow values on other peoples and cultures without regard for potentially harmful consequences and in ignorance of the reality of situational ethics.  Ethical veganism may work well in one situation or context, but not in others.  Since the only moral or ethical absolutes are compassion and equalitarianism, which are appropriate for all contexts and situations, we can say this: That it is ethical to humanely kill some animals, and have those humans and other animals in dire need consume them. Otherwise these animals, like Indias abandoned cows or unwanted calves, would otherwise starve to death or die slowly and terribly with their insides impacted with plastic bags that they consume, along with roadside garbage, which is sometimes all they can ever find to eat.

 

Deep and Shallow Animal Rights
 Veganism has become a central focus of the animal liberation movement, and that is all very well as a beginning so long as it does not become a self-involving and self-limiting moral absolute. If it does, it will greatly limit progress in the humane treatment of animals and in preventing animals suffering in situations and contexts where animals are better being humanely raised, killed, and eaten, than being allowed to slowly suffer and die. We can find similar parallels between deep and shallow animal rights and deep and shallow vegetarianism, one tending to feed into and either reinforce or undermine the other.
 Shallow animal rights argues for the abolition of 'pet-owning' because it entails exploiting animals for selfish, emotional reasons. Deep animal rights looks at the kinds of relationships between people and their animal companions, identifies good relations based on a mutually enhancing symbiosis, and seeks to promote good relations and better understanding of animal behavior and responsible care.

Shallow animal rights opposes all biomedical research on animals under the pejorative term 'vivisection,' while deep animal rights accepts the need and value of research into developing improved vaccines, new surgical procedures on injured animals, and clinical studies of sick animals to evaluate new medicines and treatment regimens, for the benefit of all animals; and for the benefit of humans from the knowledge gained.

Shallow animal rights argues that all animals have a right not to be killed for human consumption or for other reasons, such as population and disease control. All killing, even if done humanely, is wrong and a violation of animals' right to life. Deep animal rights looks at the issue of killing from a more holistic perspective and on a case by case basis that includes such concerns as: The animals quality of life (as when euthanasia is indicated to prevent continued suffering); the ecological, environmental, economic and public health consequences of raising and killing billions of animals primarily for human consumption; the costs and benefits to species-diversity and biodiversity of regulating certain animal populations; and the viability of culturally and socio-economically acceptable alternatives to killing animals.

 

Animal Liberation and Human Well-being
 The primary task and agenda of animal liberation (and human liberation) is not freedom from service and telos (biological purpose) but freedom from oppression, injustice, and suffering.  Over-emphasis in the West on what and who we eat has clouded the vision of the animal liberation movement, which is forgivable up to a point considering we are all caught in a consumer society. But to make veganism the worldwide goal of animal liberation, though well-intended, is regrettably naïve because it has no global bioethical foundation and is likely, therefore, to cause more harm than good and distract many good people from really helping to make a difference. It is a sad truism that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Even if, and hopefully when, we see the end of all factory farms and of an agricultural system in the US that uses some seventy percent of the good land to raise feed primarily for livestock, farm animals -- or some other wild herbivorous species, such as buffalo -- will be needed for the nutrient cycling of grasslands and of crop residues in many ecological farming systems. So-called ''green manure,' where certain plants are grown specifically to be mulched as fertilizer as an alternative to animal manure or chemical fertilizers, cannot be produced in sufficient quantity in arid farming and rangeland areas. Also chickens, ducks, geese, sheep and goats play an important role in insect and weed control in organic orchards, vineyards and other ecologically diverse and integrated farming systems.

Without the draught-power provided by oxen and other animals like water buffalo, third world people would have great difficulty cultivating the land.  Peasant farmers cannot afford tractors, which are environmentally and ecologically less acceptable anyway. And without the dried manure from their animals, these peoples would have insufficient  fuel to cook their food and boil drinking water, especially in arid and deforested areas. Livestock provide the main, if not the only, financial buffer against famine for the poor when their own crops fail, because they can trade their animals for basic staples such as cassava and grains, or they can kill and eat them.

The long history of lacto-vegetarianism in India (where people of lower caste eat meat) combined with the religious politics that have outlawed the slaughter of cows, have had tragic consequences as the human and cattle populations have increased. With an estimated population of over 200 million cattle and adequate feed for only sixty percent, nonproductive (barren and dry) cows, spent oxen and unwanted calves, if not slaughtered, are destined to a slow death from starvation living off the streets, or incarcerated in cow shelters (gowshallas). Those who are slaughtered are either killed illegally under conditions where humane and sanitary standards are nonexistent, or they are subjected to long and horrendous journeys on foot and by rail or truck to states where slaughter is legal, many dying on the way.

Because cows are kept not just for their milk, and because cows milk has religious significance as well as economic and nutritional value, few informed and concerned Indians are likely to opt for a vegan diet. The milk cow is as central to Indian culture as the pig is to Eastern Europe and the Far East, beef cattle to the Americas, and sheep to Australia and New Zealand. Veganism and vegetarianism are ethically valid dietary choices for many people in many countries, but not at this time for all people in all countries. It would mean severe malnutrition for millions of people who have no viable dietary alternatives. These will only come gradually as farming practices evolve,  the human population stabilizes, and raising animals intensively on 'factory' farms primarily for their flesh becomes a thing of the past.

 The goal of some vegetarians to see an end to all animals being farmed for various purposes is an ideal that is neither realistic nor appropriate, for the reasons outlined above. The recycling of nutritious remains of these animals, after humane slaughter, and after a relatively natural life in ecologically sound, organic farming systems, into quality foods that benefit otherwise protein-deprived people in developing countries and low-income families in the developed world, is an ethical choice. We need to be open-minded in our dietary choices and what we feel is best for others in order to minimize harm and maximize good. And we need to more closely examine our values, motives, and religious and cultural traditions that may make us feel good, but may have more harmful consequences than we realize.

Because advocating global veganism, especially in developing countries, is ecologically unsound, economically unrealistic, and culturally unacceptable, it is also ethically flawed. It is shallow vegetarianism and parallels the narrow fundamentalism evident in other cults, religions and secular, that do more to divide than unify the people.   Deep vegetarianism requires the recognition of situational ethics, the moral absolute being compassion, not veganism. In the developed world, and amongst the affluent in less developed countries, the adoption of vegetarian and vegan diets is enlightened self-interest, as many health and nutrition experts affirm. It is also to be applauded as an ethically appropriate response to animal suffering, and to the environmental and public health costs of intensive, industrialized agriculture.

This iconoclastic essay, that raises more questions than answers, may be offensive to some readers. But a life unexamined, as I am learning, is a life unlived.