Lobster In a satirical and scathing critique of the Maine Lobster Festival, Wallace draws attention to the fact that lobsters are "basically giant sea-insects," and their purpose in the ecosystem is as "garbagemen of the sea, eaters of dead stuff," (2). Lobsters were "low-class food, eaten only by the poor and institutionalized," considered "cruel and unusual" punishment food much as rats would be considered today (Wallace 3). Far from being the gourmet delicacy lobsters are now, the "bugs" have come to connote ironically high-class foodstuff. Wallace's article echoes one of the core arguments made by Scruton in "The Conscientious Carnivore." Food customs are largely arbitrary, based on ritual and social custom. Eating has long been a "social, often a religious, act, embellished by ritual and enjoyed as a primary celebration of membership" in a community (Scruton 82). Vegetarianism is likewise a social and religious act, "embellished by ritual and enjoyed as a primary celebration of membership." As such, vegetarianism has no absolute ethical boundaries and is as arbitrary as any social custom or religious code. Few vegetarians would be able to survive the tropics without killing mosquitos, or survive the polar zones without resorting to an animal-based diet. Therefore, the moral injunction against eating animals is an emotionally appealing and well-meaning argument, but one that cannot be realistically applied to the entirety of humanity.

The ethics of eating meat emerges as one of the most relevant and important topics of debate for the early 21st century. As Wallace points out, "there is no honest way to avoid certain moral questions," particularly related to the relationship between human beings and the animals they eat (6). Moreover, as Pollan points out in The Omnivore's Dilemma, the morality of eating animals takes into account far more than the pain and suffering caused to an individual creature. The meat/fish/dairy industries do damage to the environment in measurable and significant ways. Insofar as human beings can agree on the fundamental right of people to freedom, liberty, and life, it would be impossible to argue that destroying the environment for short-term economic or hedonic gain is a sounder alternative to choosing abstinence from animal flesh. Based on a collective of moral imperatives and from both deontological and utilitarian perspectives, it can nevertheless be argued that eating meat is not categorically wrong. There are too many gray areas to the vegetarian debate that make it impossible to categorically deny all human beings the right to kill animals some of the time, and under certain circumstances. Determining what those circumstances are that warrant killing animals is likewise tremendously complex, but any ethical debate presuming simple solutions is futile; human ethics and realities are too complex for simplistic moral absolutes. As the lecture notes point out, "there is no unifying moral rule or principle. Morality is complex and messy."

In The Omnivore's Dilemma and likewise in "Consider the Lobster," Pollan and Wallace, respectively, come to no clear-cut conclusions after their deep and searching inquiry into the ethics of killing animals for food. Both authors acknowledge the pain and suffering caused to animals by the food industry. Unlike Scruton, who white-washes the cattle industry, Pollan and Wallace both recognize the discomfort that is felt when watching, hearing, or simply being aware of an animal's pain. Scruton seems to have built up a wall of defenses that prevent a genuine argument to take place. By claiming, for instance, that livestock farmers view their animals' suffering as a "betrayal of trust" resounds of the patronizing and demonic arguments used to justify harming slaves and antebellum United States. Simply because killing animals is a custom does in no way warrant the perpetration of these cruel behaviors. Having said that, it would still be impossible to project the morally high ground of vegetarianism on all human societies. Unless the vegetarian principle can reasonably be realized for all persons, it is despicable to presume that vegetarianism is a superior way of life to ominvorism. For a vegetarian argument to be made, that argument must be both universal and realistic. Otherwise, the vegetarian lifestyle becomes little more than "pious observance," as Scruton puts it (81). The pious observance has no meaning without considering the daily lives of all human beings and not just those who live in areas with easy access to vegetarian food.

Because ethics are never cut and dry, it is impossible to reasonably argue either...

As Scruton suggests, the middle path is to "remoralize" eating meat (92). Pollan also comes to the conclusion that meat-eating has become too ingrained in human life, and in some geographic areas, meat-eating is inevitable. Remoarlizing meat-eating presents difficult ethical conundrums that the absolutist will grapple with. Whereas the strict vegetarian will claim that it is categorically wrong to hurt or kill animals for human pleasure, the strict omnivore will claim that it is never wrong to hurt or kill animals. Neither of these extremes is correct. It is often wrong to hurt and kill animals, and likewise, it is often right -- or at least inevitable for the preservation of human life -- to kill animals. A case can be made for martyrdom, in which a human being deems his or her life as being less worthy than an animal. Most people, though, would choose their own life over an animal's. One need not resort to the logically spurious arguments presented by Scruton, who claims that human beings are categorically superior to animals. Few human beings are as ethically neutral as animals, and the case can be made that an animal's life is actually worth more than a person's, given the person's predilection for creating things that are destructive. An animal might kill another animal to survive, but no animal is capable of creating weapons of mass destruction, nuclear power, or factory farms.
The primary argument against vegetarianism seems to be the fact that human beings are categorically different from all other sentient beings and therefore more worthy of consideration. The former may be true, but the latter is not. Human beings are different, but they are not necessarily more worthy of consideration. If anything, human beings have proven themselves to be utterly unworthy. Human beings, like many other animals, do derive some sort of pleasure in killing. A cat will play with its prey for minutes and sometimes hours or even days. Likewise, the human being will delight in the killing of a live lobster in the way Wallace describes. There is no objective criteria that deems humans as being morally superior to other animals; humans are simply more powerful. In spite of this reality, the case against killing animals cannot be made with any certainty. It is sometimes ethically justifiable to eat meat. A person living in an extreme climate, whether that be a remote island in the South Pacific or the Siberian tundra, cannot survive without animal flesh. If the moral injunction against eating meat were to permeate lawmaking, then the people of the South Pacific and the people of Siberia would need to be forcibly evacuated from their homelands in order to conform to the new ethical world order. This extreme scenario is the end result of implementing a rabid vegetarian policy. Vegetarianism is possible and realistic -- and morally justifiable -- for those who can afford it. The price of rice, beans, and other wholesome vegetarian food also makes it possible for the global poor to benefit from vegetarianism. Even if the global poor were brainwashed into thinking that meat-eating was morally wrong, Scruton would still have a strong case against the decimation of traditional food cultures that rely on meat for flavoring. Given that many traditional cultures eat meat sparingly and not nearly at the quantities consumed by Americans and some Europeans, not all meat eating is ethically questionable.

Pain is a fact of life; all human beings and all animals feel and cause pain. Ideally, human beings refrain from unwarranted sadism, such as boiling animals alive or beating their cows. Factory farming, as Pollan points out, is despicable. Factory farming can be outlawed without outlawing all meat eating. When human beings accept the pain and suffering they cause to animals and become, as Scruton puts it, more conscious, they start to realize the ways they have been brainwashed to eat meat. Lobster was never a delicacy; it was exactly the opposite. In the future, perhaps all meat can be reframed to the point where people eat meat sparingly. The ethics of vegetarianism make sense only when they are realistic enough to be global in scope. No vegetarian model is global in scope. Therefore, a better solution to the conundrum of killing animals is to do away with factory farming and simply learn how to eat less meat or no meat. Indian vegetarians have cooked without meat for millennia without sacrificing taste. Likewise, other cultures can follow suit. Being a vegetarian in no way means that vegetarianism is a universal ethical imperative. It is wrong to hurt animals, but that fact does not…