Peter Singer on Eating Ethics

1. Peter Singer on Eating Ethics Bioethics & Animals (Spring 2013) Laura Guidry-Grimes

2. Review: Peter Singer • Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University • Act-utilitarian • An act is right only insofar as it maximizes net utility (happiness over suffering) • Analyze the act directly (as opposed to rule-utilitarianism) • Principle of equal consideration: Give equal consideration to comparable interests Photo: Denise Applewhite/Princeton University

3. How Does Singer Eat? “I’ve been a vegetarian since 1971. I’ve gradually become increasingly vegan. I am largely vegan but I’m a flexible vegan. I don’t go to the supermarket and buy non-vegan stuff for myself. But when I’m traveling or going to other people’s places I will be quite happy to eat vegetarian rather than vegan” (Interview in Mother Jones)

4. Utilitarianism as a Basis for Vegetarianism • “Whether we ought to be vegetarian depends on a lot of facts about the situation in which we find ourselves” (327) • Focus on severe suffering of billions from factory farming • Fundamental interests of non-human animals and humans at stake • Non-human: extreme pain, confinement, stress, lack of freedom, etc. • Human: pollution, climate change, exploitation of workers, inability to feed the world’s poor

5. Weighing the Costs & Benefits:Abolishing Factory Farms • Costs • Some pleasures of taste • Once-only financial costs of transition • Benefits • Eliminate unnecessary suffering and waste • Health • Increased food supply overall (when replace with cropland) Gradual change, phasing out of factory farming is the best hope.

6. Strongest Arguments in Favor of Factory Farms – and Singer’s Responses • Can help ameliorate hunger in developing countries • Response: Industries cater to middle and upper class; good health possible with low meat intake • Cropland will lead to more animal deaths than farmland • Response: When we adjust for amount of food produced per acre, far fewer animals are killed on cropland. • These animals would not exist were we not breeding them for meat and meat products. • Response 1: If land were left to go wild, the total number of unconfined animals in existence would increase. • Response 2: The lives of factory farm animals are not worth living now. From The Ethics of What We Eat

7. Possibility for Morally Acceptable Meat-Eating? • All of these conditions must be met: • Animals are raised on land that cannot be used for crops. • The animals have good lives. • The animals would otherwise not exist. From The Ethics of What We Eat

8. Personal Responsibility? • Factory farming might be evil…but why should I change my eating habits? • Remember: Stuart Rachels considers the same question. • Some threshold of meat consumption determines how many factory farms will be in existence • Vegetarianism “as something which ‘underpins, makes consistent, and gives meaning to all our other activities on behalf of animals’” (336) • Should be in combination with other active forms of advocacy

9. Humanely Raised, Vegan, or Vegetarian? • Humanely Raised? • Sliding worry: “as long as we continue to eat animals there is a danger of our sliding back into the methods of treating animals in use today” (332) • Transparency problem (hard to discern which meat is from humanely raised animals) • Better uses for land • Vegetarian? • Cannot have laying hens without male chickens, which are killed once they have been sexed • Vegan? • Still part of consumer chain…but best option Supplemented with passages from The Ethics of What We Eat

10. Paris Exemption • Possible exemption: A vegan is permitted to eat whatever he/she wants when in an extraordinary restaurant. • Derives from Christian Science Monitor article about Daren Firestone’s eating ethics. • Singer’s response: • Not concerned about “trivial infractions” • Should consider how much support is being given to factory farms with these exceptions • Occasional self-indulgence can help someone’s faithfulness to veganism • Source of significant disagreement between Singer and Regan From The Ethics of What We Eat

11. Discussion Questions • Do you think that utilitarianism provides a strong enough philosophical basis for being vegan or vegetarian? • Has Peter Singer adequately refuted the strongest arguments in favor of factory farming? • What do you think of the Paris exemption? • What is potentially problematic about being flexible with a vegan/vegetarian diet?

12. Additional Sources • “Chew the Right Thing” –Interview with Peter Singer: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2006/05/chew-right-thing • The Ethics of What We Eat by Peter Singer & Jim Mason • Intelligence Squared– Full debate on eating ethics (includes Peter Singer): http://youtu.be/mNED7GJLY7I • Peter Singer on utilitarian.net (includes extensive list of resources written by and about Singer’s work): http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/ • “A New Year of Hope for Animals” (2013) by Peter Singer: http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/progress-on-animal-rights-in-the-europe-and-the-us-by-peter-singer

13. Questions? Comments?