I don’t claim to be an expert on diet or nutrition, but since I do try to lead a healthy lifestyle, I’m very interested in the topics. Should humans be herbivores? Should humans be carnivores? Should humans be omnivores? But even if we determine that we’re best suited as omnivores, what type of omnivores should we be?
To tangle this web even further, in the libertarian community, we often assign ethics to these choices, especially those who espouse the vegan lifestyle. With modern technology making food more plentiful, diverse, and even altered, people are apparently able to fuel their bodies with sufficient nutrition without the need to use animal products.
That’s great news for people who have certain allergies or don’t like the idea of killing animals, so should we stop eating them? I think the vegan position requires deeper questioning than it is normally given.
For this discussion, let’s assume that current technology has made it possible for humans to fully substitute meat with plant-based alternatives (for many reasons, including economically, this is not a trivial assumption). Since we’re agreeing that it’s only through modern technology that people can get vitally important nutrients like fat and protein through plants, according to vegans, were the people who preexisted these technologies committing the same wrongful acts as someone would be today?
Even if you make the argument that humans are just starting to realize that eating meat is wrong as a correlation or a coincidence to the technological advancement, it would mean that most people throughout the history of humanity were doomed to committing this crime simply because of their chronological circumstance. While it is absolutely true that tradition alone does not justify a practice, it is also true that the development of a new practice does not render the previous tradition unethical.
But don’t circumstances matter? Stealing is wrong, but if you’re going to starve to death if you don’t steal some food from an empty cabin in the woods, doesn’t that justify taking the food? Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t violate the rights of the cabin owner. You still owe restitution even if we agreed that you were justified in your actions.
Who would humanity owe restitution to for eating animals for the past number of millennia? It’s hard enough to figure out the restitution for the descendants of victims of people dead long ago, but unlike the case of animals, there are ways to do it.
But there are even more questions.
How do you pay restitution to animals? Your answer cannot be “Well, leave them alone for now on” because that’s what you would have owed them in the first place. Restitution is the best attempt to make someone whole following a transgression. When you start thinking about restitution for domesticated animals, it gets even worse. Domesticated animals are owned by people, which means that they do not possess self-ownership. If libertarians argue that rights are derived through self-ownership, then rights cannot exist when self-ownership does not exist. If animals have no rights, then of course they can be killed and eaten.
I clearly don’t agree with vegan ethics, but I don’t want to dismiss it without having a good understanding of the positions. If I have anything wrong, I want to hear it.
Like what you’re reading? Let us keep in touch and subscribe to us!
[mc4wp_form id=”2996″]