Chapter seventeen of "the Omnivore's Dilemma" is titled "The ethics of eating animals. In the chapter, Michael Pollan talks about the ethical issues involved in the comsumption of meat. He begins by reiterating his opinion that if people knew where their meat was coming from, they probably wouldn't eat as much of it. He also claims that people consiously neglect to pay attention to where their food comes from, knowing that if they did, they would see the ethical issues. Pollan cites Peter Singer in likening animal exploitation to slavery and oppresion against women. While there is much argument as to whether certain animals can reason and how their intelligence compares to that of humans, Pollan believes the underlying factor is the animals' ability to suffer. He believes that most animals in the meat industry spend their whole life suffering before they are slaughtered. He explains that because of this suffering, he became a vegetarian. However, he later points out that avoiding meat does not solve the problem and that some level of predation is neccesary for most species so that they do not overpopulate. At the end he visits a slaughterhouse and decides that animal killing is ok as long as it is done humanely. What is humane, however, is up for debate
Discussion Questions:
1) Where should we draw the line on what we consider humane treatement of animals?
2) How do we decide what species should be conidered equal to humans?
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You're doing an exemplary job in your posts of concisely summarizing the readings--and I choose the word "exemplary" purposefully, as your blog is the best example so far as the kind of writing I'm asking for in this blogging assignment. It's much harder to write about the readings in a paragraph than it is to write about them in a page, and you're demonstrating an important skill in these posts.
ReplyDeleteYou also raise thought-provoking questions. The ones you raise for today highlight the important sociological point that meaning is something we construct socially--the definition of "humane," for example, depends on the social context and has no absolute definition. In class we haven't yet talked much about this "socially constructed" aspect of what we take for granted as "reality," but it will come up again in future topics. Nice job putting your finger on a critical issue!