scruton carnivore's credo harper's

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READINGS [Argument) A CARNIVORE'S CREDO From "Eating Your Friends," a paper presented by Roger Scruton in a debate at Princeton University last November with philosopher and animal-rights advocate Peter Singer. Scruton is a professor of philosophy and the author, most recently, of Gen- tle Regrets. Le treatment of animals, like much else that was once the prerogative of religion, has be- come a matter of ordinary morality, with no shortage of sermons directed at hunters, fur wearers, and carnivores by puritans who can- not abide the sight of sinful pleasure. Eating an- imals has hecome a test case for moral theory in Western societies. In confronting opponents of meat eating, we find ourselves exploring the grounds of moral judgments, and the nature of the beings who make them. The moral life, I believe, rests on three pil- lars: value, virtue, and duty. Some hold that all the weight can be made to rest on only one of them: value, according to utilitarians; duty, ac- cording to their deontological opponents. Whether or not any such reductions can be successfully carried out, we cannot give a co- herent account of the moral life without doing justice to all the conceptions that support it- to value, virtue, and dutv-s-and showing their place, for human beings, in the good life. I have a strong urge to place at the very cen- ter of the subject, especially since the subject is our relation to the natural world, another as- pect of human nature, often left out by the standard treatments of ethics: namely, piety. By this I mean a disposition to acknowledge our weak and dependent state and to face the sur- rounding world with due reverence and humili- ty. It is the residue of religion in us all, whether or not we wish to admit it. It is the attitude that many people-environmentalists, conser- vationists, and animal-welfare .activists includ- ed-are attempting to recapture in a world where the results of human presumption are so depressingly apparent. Unlike other animals, we are self-conscious. We do not live, as they do, only in the "world of perception," to use Schopenhauer's phrase. Our thoughts and feelings range over the actu- al and the possible, the probable and the neces- sary, what will be and what ought to be. Upon these basic facts-traditionally summa- rized by saying we are rational animals-other and more remarkable facts depend. We have moral, aesthetic, and religious experiences; we pray to things visible and invisible; we laugh, sing, and grieve; are indignant, approving, and dismayed. And we relate to one another in a special way. Human beings are actual or poten- tial members of a moral community, regulated by concepts of right and duty, in which each member enjoys sovereignty over his own af- fairs, so long as he accords an equal sovereignty to others. With all this comes an immense bur- den of guilt. Morality and self-consciousness set us in judgment over ourselves, so that we see READINGS 21

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READINGS

[Argument)

A CARNIVORE'SCREDO

From "Eating Your Friends," a paper presented byRoger Scruton in a debate at Princeton Universitylast November with philosopher and animal-rightsadvocate Peter Singer. Scruton is a professor ofphilosophy and the author, most recently, of Gen-tle Regrets.

Le treatment of animals, like much elsethat was once the prerogative of religion, has be-come a matter of ordinary morality, with noshortage of sermons directed at hunters, furwearers, and carnivores by puritans who can-not abide the sight of sinful pleasure. Eating an-imals has hecome a test case for moral theory inWestern societies. In confronting opponents ofmeat eating, we find ourselves exploring thegrounds of moral judgments, and the nature ofthe beings who make them.The moral life, I believe, rests on three pil-

lars: value, virtue, and duty. Some hold that allthe weight can be made to rest on only one ofthem: value, according to utilitarians; duty, ac-cording to their deontological opponents.Whether or not any such reductions can besuccessfully carried out, we cannot give a co-herent account of the moral life without doingjustice to all the conceptions that support it-to value, virtue, and dutv-s-and showing theirplace, for human beings, in the good life.

I have a strong urge to place at the very cen-ter of the subject, especially since the subject isour relation to the natural world, another as-pect of human nature, often left out by thestandard treatments of ethics: namely, piety. Bythis I mean a disposition to acknowledge ourweak and dependent state and to face the sur-rounding world with due reverence and humili-ty. It is the residue of religion in us all, whetheror not we wish to admit it. It is the attitudethat many people-environmentalists, conser-vationists, and animal-welfare .activists includ-ed-are attempting to recapture in a worldwhere the results of human presumption are sodepressingly apparent.Unlike other animals, we are self-conscious.

We do not live, as they do, only in the "worldof perception," to use Schopenhauer's phrase.Our thoughts and feelings range over the actu-al and the possible, the probable and the neces-sary, what will be and what ought to be.Upon these basic facts-traditionally summa-rized by saying we are rational animals-otherand more remarkable facts depend. We havemoral, aesthetic, and religious experiences; wepray to things visible and invisible; we laugh,sing, and grieve; are indignant, approving, anddismayed. And we relate to one another in aspecial way. Human beings are actual or poten-tial members of a moral community, regulatedby concepts of right and duty, in which eachmember enjoys sovereignty over his own af-fairs, so long as he accords an equal sovereigntyto others. With all this comes an immense bur-den of guilt. Morality and self-consciousness setus in judgment over ourselves, so that we see

READINGS 21

our actions constantly from outside, judged byourselves as we are hy others. We become cutoff from our instincts, and even the sponta-neous joy of fellowship is diminished by the

screen of judgment through which it

A first must pass.

nimals rescue us from this predica-ment. Their mute lack of self-consciousnessneutralizes our own possession of it andmakes it possible to pour out on them thepent-up store of fellow-feeling, without fearof reproach. At the same time, we are acutelyaware of their moral incompetence. Their af-fection, if it can be-won at all, is easily won,and based on nothing. However much a manmay be loved by his dog, this love bringswarrnrh and security but no release frorn'guilt. It implies no moral approval and leavesthe character of its object un assessed and un-endorsed. For that very reason, a dog is a fareasier companion than a person, and thetemptation arises to believe that all animalsare really like our pets, with the same moralclaims and the same need for considerationthat characterizes the animals on whom we

[Solicitation]

THE CAGEY BEE

From a request for proposals posted March 9 by theDefense Advanced Research Projects Agency, abranch of the U.S. Department of Defense:

DARPA seeks innovative proposals to devel-op insect-cyborgs, possibly enabled by intimate-ly integrating microsystems within insects dur-ing early stages of their metamorphosis. Thefinal demonstration goal is the delivery of aninsect within five meters of a target located onehundred meters away, using electronic remotecontrol and/or global positioning system. Theinsect must remain stationary either indefinite-ly or until otherwise instructed and be able totransmit data from relevant sensors, yielding in-formation about the local environment. Thesesensors can include gas sensors, microphones,video, etc. Although flying insects are of greatinterest (e.g., moths and dragonflies), hoppingand swimming insects could also meet finaldemonstration goals.

22 HARPER'S MAGAZINE J MI\Y 2006

depend for companionship. That which dis-tinguishes us from animals-our predicamentas self-conscious and judging creatures-leadsus constantly to discount the difference, toact as though it were a marginal considera-tion on which nothing hangs when it comesto the real ethical questions.But the difference comes immediately

to life when we consider the question of eat-ing. Whether or not we think eating people iswrong, we do not think it is on a par witheating other animals. We recoil from the ideathat human beings might be on the dailymenu along with cabbage, chicken, squirrel,and lentils. This brings to the fore the dis-tinction between our attitude to the humanbody, even when dead, and our attitude tothe bodies of other anirnals. Although ele-phants and dolphins engage in behavior thatshows a partial resemblance to our feelings inthe presence of the dead, the emotions withwhich we approach a corpse are emotionsthat only a self-conscious being can experi-ence and must be characterized in terms suchas "awe," "reverence," and "anxiety." Theybelong to the philosophically neglected realmof the psyche I have called piety. The corpseis not to be carelessly touched, not to be de-filed, not to be abused. Its former occupantsurrounds it like an aura, demanding tobe mourned.All this you will find beautifully evoked in

the scene between Achilles and Priam in theIliad, when the old king comes to beg for Hec-tor's desecrated body. Not all cultures treat thispredicament as the Homeric Greeks did, but inall cultures some form of piety is called forth bythe human corpse. This is not some arbitrary ordispensable feature of our condition; it is anonrational consequence of being rational. Wecan imagine a perfectly good functional justifi-cation for these feelings, but it would disappearif we thought of them in purely functionalterms. Piety exists only SQ long as we don't askthe reason why: that, indeed, is its essence-asense of duty that does not question what it re-ceives as commands.So far as I know, people do not eat their

pets, even when the pets belong to speciesthat are commonly eaten. Pets are honorarymembers of the human community and enjoysome imagined version of the nimbus thatsurrounds the human body-the nimbusMichelangelo presented in his versions of thePieta. People bury their dogs and cats, oftenerecting tombstones over their bodies. Andeven when this seems absurd, some kind ofpiety is bestowed on an animal whose com-panionship has been enjoyed when it is acompanion no longer.

Cara Leanne Wood

>,

~II

"Monument Diner," by Marcus Doyle, was exhibited in February at the AlP AD PhotographyShow, in New Yark City,

Pious feelings survive also in the religiousprohibitions that attach to the eating of meat.If God takes an interest in what we eat, it canonly be because eating and ingesting are actsnot only of the body but also of the soul. Yet di-etary codes do not prohibit us from defiling thecorpses of other animals. They instruct us notto defile ourselves by eating what is forbidden.This is further confirmation of the dramatic way

in which animals and people arerr' distinguished in our feelings.

1.he fact that eating, for us, is not what it isfor other animals is related to the fact that we aremoral beings. Eating has in every traditional so-ciety been regarded as a social, often religious,act,embellished by ritual and enjoyed asa primary cel-ebration of membership. Rational beings are nour-ished on conversation, taste, manners, and hos-pitality, and to divorce food from these practicesis to deprive it of its true significance.Rational be-ings rejoice less in filling themselves than in thesight of food, table, and guests dressed for a cer-emonial offering. Their meals are also sacrifices;some anthropologists have argued that the originof our carnivorous ways lies in the burnt offeringsof ancient ritual. At any rate, the giving of foodis the core of hospitality;

In the fast-food culture, on the other hand,food is not given but taken. The solitary stuff-ing of burgers, pizzas, and ''TV dinners"; thedisappearance of family meals and domesticcooking; the loss of table manners-all thesetend to obscure the distinction between eatingand feeding. For many people, vegetarianism isa roundabout way of restoring that distinction.Vegetables are gifts of the earth: by eatingthem we reestablish contact with our roots.They offer a way of reincorporating food intothe moral life, hedging it in with moral scruplesand revitalizing the precious sense of shame.Meat eating cannot be vindicated without con-fronting the deep feelings that prompt our di-etary habits. The onus lies on the carnivore toshow that there is a way of incorporating meatinto a life that does not shame the human race,as it is shamed by the solitary "cave man" glut-tony of the burger stuffer.I have hinted that there might be a distinc-

tion between virtuous and vicious eating. Virtu-ous eating involves behavior that is considerateof others and that permits and facilitates theeasy continuation of dialogue. Good mannersprevent that sudden and disturbing eclipse ofthe person by the animal, as the fangs sinkthemselves into the mess on the plate.

READINGS 23

Cara Leanne Wood

It is also a part of virtue to consider whatbenefits and harms are promoted by your ac-tions-not, I hasten to add, in the manner ofthe utilitarian, seeking a comprehensive bal-ance sheet· of pleasure and pain, but In themanner of the humane person, who wishes topromote kindness and to oppose cruelty-inother words, to promote virtue over vice. Thevirtue of kindness cannot be understood with-out also invoking ideas of responsibility, duty,and right. Kindness means treating with gen-

[Apology]

A BANANAIN THE SUN

From a letter written by Robert S. Poydasheff, themayor of Columbus, Georgia, to Gwen Stewart,who had complained about policemen eating banarwsat a civit-rights march in January 2005. Accordingto Poydasheff, she considered the banana "an af-front," though she would not specify why. Localmedia speculated that Stewart perceived the fruit as aslur equating African Americans with apes.

Dear M's.Stewart,I am sorry you found Columbus police officers

eating bananas on the street when you arrived inColumbus for the protest. Let me assureyou therewas no intent to offend. The officersneeded somenutrition after standing long hours on the street,and they particularly needed the potassium avail-able in bananas and some other fruits.Accordingly, they were given bananas along

with some drinking water. There was nothought of insulting or offending anyone, andperhaps that was thoughtless on our part. Inany case, let me offer my sincere apology foranything our officers may have done that gaveoffense to you or anyone else. I want to assureyou that it will not happen again. I want to en-courage you to come back to Columbus andget to know us better. You will find this aplace where African Americans and all otherpeople are valued equally and are welcomedto full participation in community life.Again, I am sorry you were offended, and I

hope you will accept this sincere apology.

Respectfully,Robert S. Poydasheff

24 HARPER'S MAGAZINE I MAY 2006

tleness and consideration all those with whomyou have dealings, while also fulfilling yourobligations toward them. To speak of it bringsus to the fundamental question of deontology:what are our obligations, and do they permitus to eat animals?Animals bred or kept for our uses are not

honorary members of the moral community,as pets are. Nevertheless the use we make ofthem imposes a reciprocal duty to look afterthem, which spreads forward from the farmer-to the slaughterer and from the slaughterer tothe consumer, all of whom benefit from theseanimals and must therefore assume some partof the duty of care. To criticize battery pigfarming as violating a duty of care is surelyright and proper. But consider the traditionalbeef farmer, who fattens his calves for thirtymonths, keeping them on open pasture in thesummer and in warm roomy barns in the win-ter, feeding them on grass, silage, beans, andmaize, attending to their ailments, and send-ing them for slaughter, when the time comes,to the nearby slaughterhouse, where they areinstantly dispatched by a humane killer. Sucha farmer treats his cattle as well as cattle canbe treated, and such animals are ,as happy astheir nature allows, Anybody who cares foranimals ought to see this kind of husbandry asa complex moral good, to be defended, on theone hand, against those who would forbid theeating of meat altogether and, on the otherhand, against those carnivores who prefer theunseen suffering of the battery farm and thefactory abattoir.The relation between man and animal may

not always be as harmonious as it appears inchildren's books devoted to life on the farm,but it is only one feature of the total ecologyof the countryside, Traditional livestock farm-ing involves the maintenance of pastureland,properly enclosed with walls or hedges.Wildlife habitats spring up as the near auto-matic by-products of the boundaries andshady places required by cattle. This kind offarming has shaped the English landscape, en-suring it retains its dual character as producerof human food and a complex wildlife habitatwith a beauty inextricably connected to itsmultifarious life. In this way, what is, from thepoint of view of agribusiness, a wasteful use ofland becomes, from the point of view of therest of us, one of the kindest uses of land yetdevised, The animal brought to the table willhave enjoyed the protection of the one whonurtured him, and his death will be like theritual sacrifices described in the Bible andHomeric literature-a singling out of a victimfor an important office to which a kind ofhonor is attached.

Cara Leanne Wood

the real force of the vegetarian argumentstems, I believe, from a revulsion at the viciouscarnivore: the meat eater as he has evolved inthe solipsistic fast-food culture, with the re-moval of food from its central place in domes-tic life and the winning of friends. From Homerto Zola, meat has been seen as the primordialgift to the stranger, the eruption into the worldof human conflict of the divine spirit of peace.Reduce meat to an object of solitary greed likechocolate and the question naturally arises:why should life be sacrificed just for this?The question presents a challenge. It is ask-

ing the burger stuffer to come clean: to showwhy it is that his greed should be indulged inthis way, why he can presume to kill againand again for the sake of a solitary pleasurethat neither creates nor sustains any moralties. To such a question it is always possible torespond with a shrug of the shoulders. But it isa real question, one of many that people nowask, as the old forms of piety dwindle. Piety isthe remedy for religious guilt, and to thisemotion we are all witting or unwitting heirs.And I suspect people become vegetarians forprecisely that reason: by doing so they over-come the residue of guilt that attaches toevery form of hubris, and in particular to thehubris of human freedom.There is, however, a remedy more in keeping

with the Judea-Christian tradition. We shouldnot abandon our meat-eating habits but remor-alize them, by reincorporating them into affec-tionate human relations and using them as in-struments of hospitality, conviviality, andpeace. That was the remedy practiced by ourparents, with their traditional "Sunday roast"coming always at midday. after they had giventhanks. Those brought up on fast food are notused to making sacrifices: mealtimes, manners,dinner-table conversation, and the art of cook-ery itself have all but disappeared from theirworldview. But all those things form part of acomplex human good, and I cannot help think-ing that, when added to the ecological benefitsof small-scale livestock farming, they secure forus an honorable place in the scheme of things,and neutralize more effectively than the vege-tarian alternative our inherited burden of guilt.I would suggest that it is not only permissible

for those who care about animals to eat meat;they have a duty to do so. If meat eating shouldever become confined to those who do not careabout animal suffering, then compassionatefarming would cease. Where there are consci-entious carnivores, there is a motive to raiseanimals kindly. Moreover, conscientious carni-vores show their depraved contemporaries thatthere is a right and a wrong way to eat. Dutyrequires us, therefore, to eat our friends.

26 HARPER'S MAGAZINE / MAY 2006

[Consultation]

FIRE AWAY

From a list of questions, believed to have beenasked by recruits at Al Qaeda training camps inAfghanistan. found by U.S. forces in 2002 in a"safe house" in Kandahar. The questions, whichdate from 2000 and 2001, were released in Feb-ruary by the Combating Terrorism Center atWest Point.

I came here to become prepared for jihad, but Idid not tell my parents. Am I at fault for nottelling them?

In the past, Muslims feared American militarypower. Nowadays military operations prove thatit is possible to hit the enemy, but we are facinganother problem-the cultural and intellectual ill-vasion. People have come to love Western civi-lization and Westerners themselves. How shouldwe deal with this problem?

I live in Europe, not because I migrated but be-cause I was born there. What is the ruling onstealing their possessions and killing them intheir homes?

Dear Sheikh, don't you see that purchasing locallyproduced goods,even if they are highly priced,willsolve the globalization problem?

How can one gain political analysis and knowl-edge of events? Is it by listening to the news orreading books? What books would you advisereading to gain political knowledge?

Youmentioned that scholars, scientists, teachers,and students accompanied the Prophet to battle.There was no excuse for anyone when it came tojihad. What should we say to our famous scholarswho did not participate in jihad against Russia inAfghanistan and against Serbia in Bosnia?

Is there a plan to attack the U.S. naval bases,and how could I work in this field?

One of the Prophet's teachings states: "Hell isawaiting him who lies in order to amuse thepeople." On this subject I have the followingquestion. At times, one of the guys speaks jok-ingly-we ask him if there is tea and he answersno. A short while later he gives you tea. Do youconsider this type of joke a lie, or not?

lowe some money to Muslims back home and Icame to the land of jihad after a friend promisedto pay this debt. I don't know whether he did ornot. Should I go to the front line or not?

Cara Leanne Wood