Finding a Middle Ground

Michael Allen Fox’s article “Vegetarianism and Treading Lightly on the Earth” is compelling to me in that he isn’t concerned with defending an animal’s right to life – an argument I’ve grown tired of hearing repeated – but rather with the meat consumer’s effects on the environment overall. In particular, I completely agree with his view that people in contemporary society engage in the “construction of selfhood by means of consumer choices” and that overall we ignore the consequences of those choices not only in regard to animal rights but in relation to their environmental impact (497). It’s not that I don’t think that animals have certain rights (indeed, I would argue that factory farming treats animals in morally impermissible ways) but rather that the rights of animals pale in comparison to the immense resource depletion and destruction that a meat-centric diet produce. The destruction of rainforests, rivers, and fisheries is a serious concern that I think is directly related to our food preferences and we should start seeing the consequences of consumer choices as the real problem and not simply the lives of animals as the only morally important issue.

I do have one challenge to Fox’s argument that I think is worth considering. Fox begins by talking about the health of a vegetarian diet and then goes on to defend the view that a vegetarian or vegan diet would also prevent ecological destruction because it bypasses the taxing production and rearing methods that the meat industry uses. But, why is it necessary to create a black or white dichotomy between eating meat and being a vegetarian? I hold the view that eating meat itself isn’t a morally wrong act (we don’t get angry at a tiger when it hunts) but rather that the way we eat meat is morally wrong. It’s our methods that are impermissible, inhumane, and environmentally irresponsible and that advocating vegetarianism is sidestepping an attitude that maybe we should consider changing rather than simply avoiding in general (in fact, people are always going to use animals for food and so it’s our responsibility to not romanticize about a world completely free of meat consumption where this attitude won’t exist). Wouldn’t it be better rather than trying to convert large masses of people to vegetarianism (a goal that seems naïve in my opinion) to consider lessening the demand for meat products while at the same time appealing to government bodies to regulate and improve our current production methods? I think it’s a better option to educate people to not rely heavily on meat and then reform the production and consumption process to become more sustainable rather than trying to defend the view that vegetarianism is the only responsible path to helping the ecological crisis. I think extreme views or dogmatism of any kind are generally misguided and that we should seek a sustainable middle ground.