Why The Consumption of Meat for Human Enjoyment is Immoral

I am writing to express my thoughts on animal welfare with the consumption of meat for humans. In this letter, I will discuss my position and present my arguments that will try and convince you that the consumption of meat is not moral for animals. The letter will be structured and said from a philosophical point of view, so there is some philosophical terminology used, and I will define them first. Normative ethical frameworks are the three perspectives that judge the morality. First, deontology is looking at the duty of the action. It judges the morality based on what is done. Next, utilitarianism focuses on the overall happiness of the situation. Lastly, virtue ethics look at the character of a person’s decision to determine the goodness.

Firstly, killing an animal for the consumption and enjoyment of humans is not moral from an animal rights perspective. This draws on deontology, as using something as a mean to an end, means that the “something” is being utilized to reach a desired outcome for the party using them, but the “something” is not benefiting. This is considered immoral, because one party is benefiting, while the other is not, making it unfair. To illustrate this, we can use premises and conclusion to demonstrate a logical thinking process.

Premise 1: All creatures that can suffer should have a right to live. Premise 2: Animals can suffer and feel pain. Conclusion: Animals have a right to live.

Now, the reason that animals have this ‘right’ to live, is that they can sense pain and loss. Jeremy Bentham is the founder of the reforming utilitarian school of moral philosophy, and stated that “The question is not ‘Can they reason?’ nor ‘Can they talk?’ but ‘Can they suffer?’” He argues that the ability to suffer entitles it to have equal consideration with others that can. All animals can suffer on the same degree that humans do. Secondly, ending an animal’s life is denying the animals of their interests. Animals, like all living creatures, have interests. ‘Interests’ is referring to the aspects of life that they have a desire to experience and undergo. ‘Aussie Abattoirs’, part of the Aussie Farms Repository, is an organization combating slaughtering of animals. They report figures that show how much of an animal’s lifetime is shortened, when farmed for meat. At the most extreme, male chicks are killed within 1 day after being born in the egg industry, which is 2 920 times shorter than their natural lifespan of 8 years. Other animals have on average 60 times shorter of a lifespan compared to their wild lifespan figure. The ending of life prematurely is immoral, but the way it is done is worse. To add on, animals are not being considered of their wellbeing. Animals are being subjected to inhumane conditions when they are being farmed in factories.

A documentary titled ‘Farm to Fridge’ showed the behind-the-scenes of factory farming and the appalling conditions that the animals were subjected to. Animals were tortured, controlled in forceful ways and brutally handled. It is unethical to treat animals this way, and with the fact that slaughtering animals of their meat is immoral, it is unnecessary to cause this harm to them, on top of being already involuntarily giving up their life. Deontologically, the animals are basically being tortured and subjected to inhumane conditions, hence not moral. From a utilitarian perspective, this process of consuming meat is not ethical. It can be broken down this way.

Premise 1: There should be the maximum amount of ‘goodness’ and ‘happiness’. Premise 2: (From deontology) Raising animals, then slaughtering them for food for gratification, is bad. Premise 3: The more people that become vegetarian, the less of a demand there would be for these animals. Premise 4: If the demand for these animals to be farmed is less, then less of it will happen. Conclusion: Everyone should be a vegetarian. In this breakdown, the conclusion is that everyone should be a vegetarian, as it would be less unethical.

Lastly, for virtue ethics, killing an animal for their meat is not considered virtuous. From this perspective, it would argue that the act of killing an animal for the pleasure of humans, especially in cruel and inhumane ways, is being selfish and not considerate. Hence, it would not be considered virtuous. Dr. Jared Piazza of Lancaster University researched defenses for consuming meat, and found that “one important and prevalent strategy is to rationalize that meat consumption is natural, normal, necessary and nice.” The argument of ‘natural’ is appealing to nature and does not justify that we can change. In addition, the current society’s demand for meat is causing the industry to have cruel practices to process meat more efficiently. This kind of treatment is certainly not ‘natural’ and is far beyond what would be considered acceptable. Also, others argue that the process of raising and slaughtering the animals can be done humanely, eliminating the immorality of it. However, deontologically, it is still immoral to take a life for full advantage and they are still being denied living their life with purpose and certainly not to the extent of their natural lifespan, as elaborated in previous paragraphs.

From the information accounted above, I want to put forth my recommendation to a community scale. First, campaigns and wider information of the community regarding the cruelty and immorality of eating meat should be put up. The community should be more aware of this issue and potentially drive down the demand for meat in the future. I strongly believe that better information of this would lead to the best results and outcome for this cause. In conclusion, the consumption of meat is immoral and linked with negative consequences that animals endure and suffer for their life. I sincerely hope that you have considered this information for yourself and can see the perspective I see. Keep in mind, the question is not “can they talk?”, or “can they reason?”, it is “can they suffer?”.