In the section “Eating Meat: The Best Defense”, the authors consider, as the title suggests, the best argument for human consumption of meat. In their efforts, they cite Michael Pollan’s article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. In the article Pollan contends that domestication was an evolutionary process and therefore morally acceptable. Pollan says “Domestication happened when a small handful of especially opportunistic species discovered through Darwinian trial and error that they were more likely to survive and prosper in an alliance with humans than on their own.” The authors than quickly tear Pollan’s argument apart. Specifically they target his contention that the species discovered some benefit from becoming domesticated. While Pollan’s prose may not make the most sound argument, but a simple augmentation to it may make it a bit stronger. It maybe should have read “Domestication happened when a small handful of species, through Darwinian evolution found that they were more likely to survive and prosper in an alliance with humans than on their own.” This is obviously not as nice a piece of prose as the original statement, but never the less it says what I think Pollan was intending to say.
The authors take their argument further in relation to the farming techniques and ethical implications that eating meat drag along with it. In their “Drawing Conclusions” section, the authors make some conclusions that don’t really seem to follow their arguments. They go from an environmentally conscious argument for not eating meat to the unethical treatment even the well treated animal’s experience and than finally arrive at the psychological problems even the conscientious meat eaters must experience. I will concede that the environmental argument is sound, and should cause people to reduce the amount of meat they consume. Their argument for the unethical treatment of the Polyface Farm animals seems to be stretching the limits on what they demand of animal treatment. Polyface seems to be doing a fair job of treating the animals well, despite what the authors have said. The farm is doing almost all it can to make life for these animals “good.” They are doing such a good job that they receive accolades from well known news papers. Yet the authors attempt to put down the efforts as insufficient. I think the authors needed to give a bit more praise for this farm having an ethical standard that is self imposed. Lastly, their argument regarding the psychological temptations that even conscientious meat eaters face seems to be pretentious. They say that since meat eaters face temptation to take the easy way out by eating animals that were treated poorly, it is likely they will do it. As a result the line is “fuzzy” in what is humane enough to eat. While they are correct about the line being fuzzy, they will only alienate meat eaters by saying they have little or no control over what they eat. To be frank, the authors come off as stuck up, not to mention morally and ethically superior due to their ability to walk such a hard line.