In a great opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald recently,Elizabeth Farrelly displays solid logic when she argues thatvegetarians argue the morals of vegetarian lifestyle from a badlyflawed premise.
Aftertalking about the sensitivities and justifications that vegetariansuse not to eat meat, she concludes with this sharp observation.
“The suggestion…is we shouldn’t eat animals because they’renice. Because they’re like us; the animals to which we are mostattached are those most similar to ourselves. Warm-blooded,fur-skinned, big-eyed and emotionally expressive.
You don’t hear the same lobbyists for bacterial rights or evenfish. Isn’t the moral push for vegetarianism still anthropocentric,still just a form of speciesism? And doesn’t this make it, at best,inconsistent? On the one hand, we’re told we shouldn’t eat animalsbecause they’re just like us – animals. On the other hand, we’restill special. There’s no push to stop lions or grisly (sic) bears orcurrawongs or even Chihuahuas eating meat. Just humans, because,well, we’re moral. Unlike them, we’re moral. Unlike them, we arecapable of good.
I’m fine with vegetarianism. Do it as a health kick, anenvironmental gesture, a weight loss gig. Just don’t pretend it’s amoral stance, OK?”
Many conservatives accuse Fairfax mediaof bias in their coverage of news items with a particularly left wingslant, but occasionally some of their more ethical writers just comeout pieces with irrefutable logic to balance it out. And this hasbeen one of them. If only all commentators on all sides of thisdebate displayed such perception.
Congratulations Ms Farrelly.
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