If we are a compassionate people, we must eat our friends.
That’s the argument of philosopher Roger Scruton, published in the May 2006 issue of Harper’s from a November debate at Princeton University between Scruton and animal rights advocate Peter Singer.
Scruton rejects Singer’s wickedly absurd reasoning that animals and humans live on the same continuum of life and therefore animals bear “rights” just as humans do. But unlike many who recognize human uniqueness, Scruton concedes that the eating of meat is a morally problematic issue. That’s why, he argues, the compassionate thing to do is to eat meat, compassionately.
Scruton argues that there is a difference between “virtuous eating” and “vicious eating,” a difference that is seen in table manners. “Good manners prevent that sudden and disturbing eclipse of the person by the animal, as the fangs sink themselves into the mess on the plate.” He disparages a non-communal eating, especially of meat, in a fast food culture as that of a “cave man.”
Virtuous eating also means, Scruton argues, treating animals with decency and respect. He distinguishes between pets as “honorary members of our moral community” and animals raised for food, which are not. He agrees that some practices of factory farming are unworthy of moral people. Scruton then asserts provocatively that a wholesale retreat into vegetarianism by those who hold to a morality of animal stewardship is cruel to animals. As Scruton puts it:
I would suggest that it is not only permissible for those who care about animals to eat meat; they have a duty to do so. If meat eating should ever become confined to those who do not care about animal suffering, then compassionate farming would cease. Where there are conscientious carnivores, there is a motive to raise animals kindly. Moreover, conscientious carnivores show their depraved contemporaries that there is a right and a wrong way to eat. Duty requires us, therefore, to eat our friends.
I’ll have more to say about this later. But, for now, I’ll say I think Scruton is on to something here.
Abuses in factory farming probably will not be corrected by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Actress Pamela Anderson probably will not bring about more humane practices of chicken slaughter. But carnivores (especially Christian carnivores) who reflect on the morality of meat can, and should, lead the conversations about what being human means for animal husbandry, in this time between Eden and the New Jerusalem.
