The Omnivore's Dilemma

Omnivore's Dilemma

The research question to be approached in this paper: Is there a link between morality and vegetarianism? The answer is: Yes there is a link between ethics and moral values when it comes to substituting healthy vegetables for meat raised in hideously unclean, unhealthy, inhumane conditions. Thesis: More Americans are turning away from red meat because of the appalling conditions under which cattle are raised and slaughtered on factory farms, and because killing animals represents an unethical, inhumane way to fill the nutritional needs of humans.

Meat, Morality, and Vegetarianism

Penn State Philosophy Professor Evelyn B. Pluhar makes a series of cogent points about the raising of meat on factory farms: a) science has demonstrated that factory farming is "an increasingly urgent danger to human health, the environment, and nonhuman animal welfare"; b) vegetarian food production is a viable alternative to factory farming; and c) everyone, "even vegetarians, are at risk from the pathogens released by stressed, immune-compromised, containment-filled nonhuman food animals" (Pluhar, 2010, 455-56).

The appetite for animal flesh in the United States is enormous, Pluhar explains; indeed, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that in 2007, 10.378 billion "land animals were slaughtered for food" (456). Moreover, in 1980 Americans were consuming 234 pounds per capita but by 2007 that number has grown to 273 pounds per capita, Pluhar continues (456). What most researchers don't delve into vis-a-vis factory farms and ethics are the "emotional effects" that workers at factory farms suffer from. A slaughterhouse expert referenced by Pluhar (Temple Grandin) asserts that it is commonplace for factory farm employees "…to become sadistic, literally brutalized by what they must do hourly and daily" (456).

Ethically, vegetarians are taking the "moral ground" by pointing out that inflicting pain and death on animals is unnecessary for good human health; moreover, because contemporary utilitarians (like Peter Singer -- 2004 and Gruzalski -- 2004) pursue the ethical goal of "maximizing" happiness (utility) and "minimizing" suffering (disutility), the brutally inhumane practice of factory farms must cease (Pluhar, 460).

Author Michael Pollen notes that "…no thinking person" can believe that animals are "incapable of feeling pain"; Pollen explains that beef cattle slaughtered for food in the typical U.S. factory farm stand "…ankle-deep in their own waste eating a diet that makes them sick" (317). Philosophy professor Brian G. Henning claims that the "…mass production and overconsumption of meat now constitutes one of the single greatest threats to public health" (Henning, 2011, 66). Because of the unclean spaces ("concentrated animal feeding operations" or CAFOs) and "intense confinement" producers of animal meat are "forced" to inject antibiotics into their herds to avoid the spread of disease, Henning explains. Amazingly, half of all antibiotics that are produced in the world "…are administered to livestock" (Henning, 66).