Two Minor Points

Finally I've found some time to write again.  Since Adam and I discussed fishing (see my post and his response), I have come to realize that if I'm even able to, it's going to take me some time to formulate a cogent response to Adam's remarks about the most fundamental issue we discussed in our exchange (whether or not one can justify killing and otherwise using fish and other animals under normal--that is, not extreme--circumstances).  So I don't think I'll post anything directly addressing that issue for a while.  In the meantime, though, I do want to respond to a few of the more minor points he makes in his post before I move on to some non-fishing topics.

At one point in his post, Adam says the following:

So while I do think that you’ve hit on, and usefully emphasized, an important idea with that of the ‘moral remainder’ of killing fish (and presumably, animals in general), I would argue that, rather than search for ways we might offset or discharge this remainder, the truly admirable thing would be to simply not incur it in the first place. 

I think Adam's last sentence bespeaks a misconstrual of my remarks about moral remainders--an understandable one, to be sure, but a misconstrual nevertheless.  I think he's taking it that one incurs a moral remainder only when one does something wrong, and that to discharge a moral remainder is something like atoning for a sin or doing penance.  But, I take it, we have here two distinct cases, and moreover ones that are worth keeping distinct. As I'm understanding this notion, when one discharges a remainder, one fills out the picture of what one did in the first place in such a way that one’s act merits a positive assessment where it was impossible to assess it before. Before I used the example of a promise:  when one makes a promise, one incurs an obligation to fulfill it.  That obligation is the remainder; until one fulfills the promise, the act of making it is neither right nor wrong.  By contrast, when one atones for a sin or does penance, one attempts to offset prior wrongs that have that status regardless of what one does subsequently. When, for example, a former criminal does some sort of community service as a way of making things right with the community he harmed, he's already done something wrong (assuming, for the sake of argument, that the laws he broke were good ones).  When he does this, he doesn't discharge a remainder because there is no remainder in this case; instead, he does penance.  So--and this is the most important point--the fact that, by doing something, one incurs a remainder is no reason not to do it.  Otherwise it would be the case that we always have good reason not to make promises.  Rather, one might say that when one incurs a remainder, one acquires reason to do whatever it takes to discharge it.

In another place, Adam writes:

You...discuss the pleasures of feeling engrossed with nature, of escaping the frenzy of urban climes for the serenity and peace of just being out on the river, and so forth. [...] you won’t be surprised to hear that I’m not inclined to view this as having any justificatory force whatsoever; again, the simple reason being that this just is not something whose attainment requires killing animals (hiking, canoeing, and nature photography are probably the most obvious alternatives that spring to mind).

I won't argue with Adam that, at least to some extent, one can experience the pleasures he mentions in other ways than by fishing, perhaps, as he suggests, by  hiking, canoeing, and taking photos.  But there is one pleasure of fishing regarding which this is much less clear to me.  In my first post I let Michael Pollan, who obviously had a similar experience while hunting wild pigs, describe this experience for me.  This time I'll give it a shot in my own voice.

That day on the Gunpowder, I found, all of a sudden, that I was more engrossed in what I was doing, more rapt with attention, than I have ever been in anything.  I found myself absolutely absorbed by and hyper-aware of every detail of my situation--the cold water against my legs, the movements of the fish near the opposite bank, the sun on my neck, the weight of the rod in my hand and of the line at its end, the way my fly landed in the water, and a hundred other things.  I was, to use a phrase I can't resist borrowing from John McPhee, a "panoptic glaze of attention," and I stayed that way for a while--probably at least twenty minutes.  This was the experience that I found so calming, and that made my trip so rewarding.

Me hiking on the Appalachian Trail  in western Maryland, March 2012.

My experiences lead me to doubt very much that one might have the experience I just described while  hiking, canoeing, or taking photos in nature.  For while I've only canoed once, I've hiked and backpacked more than almost anyone else I know and taken pictures consistently while doing so.  And after all of that I have to say that I have never had anything close to the experience I just described while doing any of those things.

I suppose it could be that I've just been unlucky, and that others have had precisely the same sort of experience while canoeing or hiking or taking photos.  But I doubt it.   I doubt it because when I was fishing, I was doing something I wouldn't be doing were I doing any of those other things:  I was pursuing something.  The difficulty of not spooking the fish, and of getting one's fly to drift through the water in such a way as to trick the fish into thinking it's food--both necessary if the pursuit is to come to anything--demands the kind of awareness I brought to the river that day.  That is not true of the activities Adam mentions.

Given just this much, one might suggest that merely sneaking up on or waiting for wildlife (birdwatching, for example) would bring with it the same demands and so might sometimes involve the same sort of awareness.  I've never been birdwatching and so can't say for sure whether or not this is right, but it strikes me a plausible suggestion.  Still, I have my doubts about it.  The simple fact that, when fishing, my plan if I caught anything was to kill and to eat it makes fishing so different from birdwatching that it's hard for me to imagine experiencing the two activities in the same way.  Just consider that when birdwatching, one looks forward to the delight of witnessing the sought-after bird, a tiny testament to the beauty and striking perfection of form of which nature is capable.  When fishing, by contrast, I look forward to something very different, something much more somber:  the moment when I destroy another such testament.  Consider too that this somber rite--stalking, killing, and eating the fish--is one that humans have performed probably as long as they have been around.  When I fish I feel connected to that heritage, and so to something bigger than myself.  Both the gravitas of the activity and the connection with our common heritage as human beings are completely absent when watching birds.

In any case, I'm no longer sure it even makes much of a difference whether or not the sort of experience I had while fishing can be had in other ways.  In my original post, I brought up this experience in the course of an attempt to show that the "exchange" (as I was then thinking of it) that takes place between oneself and a fish when one catches it is a fair one.  I'm no longer convinced that this is the right tack to take.  I don't mean that I think the exchange unfair to the fish.  I'm not sure now what I think about that.  I just mean that I'm less confident now than I was at the time that that one is a very promising way to defend fishing or, for that matter, meat-eating more generally.  So in spite of my protestations here, and for different reasons, I'm inclined to agree with Adam that my experience has no justificatory force, or at least none of the sort I previously took it to have.

In Defense of Fish

by ADAM CURRAN REID

Many thanks to Josh for the opportunity to publish on his blog. What follows is a slightly revised and expanded version of my original remarks in response to "In Defense of Fishing," along with a lengthier summary of our subsequent exchange over email. Comments are welcome and encouraged.

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My original response

Hey Josh. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. As an ethical vegan [1], I obviously disagree fundamentally with much of what you say, even while I appreciate how honest, open, and morally serious you are in trying to work through your thoughts on these issues in such a systematic way. What follows are just a few general comments and reactions I had while reading your piece, very much offered in the spirit of friendly inquiry.

At a general level, I think you’re absolutely right to note that considerations about ‘fairness,’ the environment, and the like can only go so far in thinking one’s way through to the moral core of the issue. As you rightly point out, the more pressing question seems to be whether there could be any defensible justification for killing animals (or as I would say, using animals in any way, shape, or form) — particularly in view of the fact that we can (again, as you rightly note) live perfectly healthy, happy lives without doing so. [2]

My response is that there simply is no so such justification. Animals are not things; nor are they resources or property. Animals are selves; beings with a subjective experience of the world, a capacity to feel pain, pleasure, fear, safety, confusion, disorientation, etc. (i.e. states that are ‘like something’ to be in). Granted, most, perhaps all, non-human animals lack the requisite cognitive sophistication to conceptualize, much less articulate, any of this (which is precisely why they need human advocates), but this shouldn’t, in my view, stop us from recognizing that these are beings for whom, and to whom, quality of life matters (I include in the phrase ‘quality of life’ here the basic interest in continuing to have one). I would argue that these considerations alone suffice to ground the strong animal rights position that animals ought to be viewed as having a fundamental moral standing, up to and including a comprehensive package of basic rights (first and foremost being the right not to be killed, enslaved, experimented on, and so on). Obviously this is meant to be taken only as a snapshot of — not an argument for — the strong animal rights position; if anyone is looking for an argument, I’d recommend Gary Francione, or my former professor, Will Kymlicka (specifically, the first few chapters of Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights, co-authored with Sue Donaldson).

But getting back to the question at hand — why, or on what grounds, might we think it morally defensible to kill animals, given that, let’s face it, we really don’t need to — to my mind the most important consideration here is just that; necessity. As long-time vegan, animal rights activist, and Rutgers professor (of law and philosophy) Gary Francione often points out, there is an important if underappreciated sense in which many of us, perhaps even most of us, actually are vegan (in spirit) already. This is the sense in which we already accept (or, one hopes, we would accept, upon reflection) the principle that animals ought not to be made to suffer unnecessarily. Here’s the catch: however we go on to unpack the details of what it means for something to be ‘necessary’ in this context, it seems clear that even the most minimal construal is going to have to preclude anything whose justification appeals solely to reasons based in convenience, entertainment, recreation, pleasure, and so on. The trouble is, these really are the only reasons we have for continuing to use animals. [This is a rough paraphrase of something he said during an interview once; I am unable to recall the exact source, but I'm sure it can be found on his website].

One might object at this point by claiming that there are deeper, socio-historical reasons in support of our legitimately using animals — reasons deriving from cultural or religious traditions, for example — in short, reasons which are not wholly reducible to convenience, pleasure, and the like. In my view, this objection amounts to little more than what philosophers refer to as the "naturalistic fallacy" (a.k.a. the "is/ought" problem), which points out that one cannot legitimately derive an "ought" (e.g. we should continue using animals) from an "is" (e.g. we have always used animals). We should also bear in mind here that we would hardly accept, as a legitimate moral justification for, e.g., sexism or slavery, the claim that practices of this sort are culturally prescribed and/or religiously enshrined. To the contrary, we would insist that cultural and religious traditions that enjoin such practices should transform — indeed conform — to the universal moral truth that men and women are entitled to equal concern and respect, that people are not property, and so on. Vegans, of the strong animal rights persuasion, maintain that the same goes for using animals.[3]

Getting back to the necessity, or lack thereof, of using/killing animals: though not directly in response to this, at one point you talk about the fallacy of supposing that the only rewards of killing a fish are to be found in the enjoyment of a tasty meal; noting that there are in fact a great many other rewards to be had. You then list amongst such rewards the satisfaction of, e.g. knowing where the fish lived, how it was caught, killed, roughly what its diet was like, etc. Since these are only going to be counted as ‘rewards’ if one already thinks it morally permissible to kill (and eat) fish, I don’t view them as having any real countervailing weight against the unnecessary suffering injunction introduced above (for these same reasons, I would personally also dismiss the satisfaction of feeling connected to the land, harvesting one’s own food, etc. since these are all pleasures one can obtain without using and/or killing animals). You then discuss the pleasures of feeling engrossed with nature, of escaping the frenzy of urban climes for the serenity and peace of just being out on the river, and so forth. Though I personally found this to be more interesting, you won’t be surprised to hear that I’m not inclined to view this as having any justificatory force whatsoever; again, the simple reason being that this just is not something whose attainment requires killing animals (hiking, canoeing, and nature photography are probably the most obvious alternatives that spring to mind).

RE: your discussion of the idea of a ‘moral remainder’ or ‘moral residue’ — more precisely, your remarks about the acknowledgement of, and attitude toward, this remainder as the mark that distinguishes the venerable from the despicable angler — my thoughts are less clear. Certainly I do recognize that there is a difference between the two types of anglers you describe (presumably a moral difference, though I’m not sure just what sort of difference this is); though, as a vegan, I’m more inclined to gloss the distinction as one between the infliction of more vs. less harm. Still, trivially, recognizing the fact that less harm is obviously preferable to more harm (in whatever context) is fully compatible with questioning (or, in my case, denying) the need for any such harm to begin with.

I suppose the parts I had the most trouble with were your remarks about solemnity, deep respect, and attitudes of this sort in the context of killing and eating fish. At one point you mention how one might even think of appropriately reverent, ‘humane’ killing as a kind of sacrament. But to whom (or what), and for whom (or what) is this sacrament undertaken in the first place? Oneself? The fish? In any case, why does the act need to take place at all? I was similarly perplexed by your suggestion that part of this attitude can be thought of in terms of gratitude or thankfulness. At one point you say "one might thank the fish for giving up its life?" I realize, of course, that this isn’t an especially novel notion, as it is no doubt part of many traditional hunter-gatherer cultures. The trouble is, it’s incoherent — or so, at least, I would argue. In the first instance, the fish does not ‘give up its life,’ rather, its life is taken. Moreover, the fish obviously lacks the cognitive capacity to appreciate the thought that its death, in whatever small measure, contributes (as nourishment) to the aspirationally admirable life of the angler who kills it; nor can the fish acknowledge, much less accept, the angler’s gratitude, any more than it can refuse consent to being recreationally jerked and tugged around by a hook, attached to a line, caught in its lip. So while I do think that you’ve hit on, and usefully emphasized, an important idea with that of the ‘moral remainder’ of killing fish (and presumably, animals in general), I would argue that, rather than search for ways we might offset or discharge this remainder, the truly admirable thing would be to simply not incur it in the first place.

Further Clarification

Following my initial response (in the comments section) to his post, Josh and I engaged in a lively and very fruitful email exchange; an exchange that afforded me a number of opportunities to clarify my position by responding to some important questions and objections that he raised. I suspect that we will have more to say about these issues in subsequent posts, but for now here’s the gist of it.

The first objection Josh raised was to note that, even accepting the ‘no unnecessary suffering’ injunction for the sake of argument, it’s not clear why (on my view) killing animals should count as inherently wrong since, simply put, this needn’t involve suffering at all. Josh writes,

"Suppose I grant for the nonce that one ought not to cause unnecessary suffering. Even so, it seems to me you still lack an adequate basis for claiming that I ought not to kill anything, that is, not just fish, but also bears and geese and people and so on. The reason is just that death needn't involve any suffering. For one thing, you don't have to cause an organism to suffer prior to its death in order to make it die. As a case in point, consider this story. When I was much younger, I used to go deer hunting with my grandpa. Once, when I was hunting with him, I spotted a large buck within range and took aim. Shortly thereafter, the deer turned toward me. I shot him through the trachea and spinal cord, breaking his neck; he fell immediately. Thereafter, he didn't even twitch; he died immediately, before he even knew he was in danger. It seems to me obvious that that deer did not suffer prior to its death. And as for death itself, I don't think one experiences one's death; indeed, how could one? As Wittgenstein says (Tractatus, 6.4311), "Death is not an event in life." So how could death itself involve any suffering? If I'm right that this deer did not suffer when I killed it, then your principle is irrelevant and implies nothing about the moral status of my action. If you want to claim that I ought not to have done that, it seems to me you need to give me some other reason. I suspect you probably have one, and if so, I'd be interested to know it."

I actually agree with most everything Josh says here. Certainly death needn't be preceded by much, or even any, suffering. Death can sometimes occur instantaneously (as his deer example illustrates); death, so to speak, needn't always involve the experience of dying.

Moving on to Wittgenstein (though I'm actually more familiar with this from Thomas Nagel; see his essay "Death," in Mortal Questions), Josh and I are more or less in agreement here too: death is not a state of experience; death, rather, is the cessation of all experience. Hence, by definition, no animal (fish, deer, human, etc.) experiences its own death. Death is just the onset of nothingness; but even that is misleading, since, again, there literally is no subject that undergoes this onset. So it looks like death, by its very nature, cannot straightforwardly be considered a harm, since a necessary condition of something even so much as counting as a harm — namely, the existence of a subject to whom the harm is attached — is entirely absent. Therefore, strictly speaking, no animal can be harmed by their own death. Or so, at least, one could argue.

Again, I more or less agree with all of this (or at least, for the sake of argument, am happy to go along with it). If I came off in my initial response as implying that I take the wrongfulness of killing fish (or any other animal) to be essentially or primarily a matter of the wrongfulness of inflicting felt harm, then I apologize, for I was not being clear.

Two points: the first is that my general philosophical leaning on the question of "how, and if so, in what sense, can a person be harmed by their own death?" is basically just Nagel's view (at least, I think it's his view): roughly, the badness or 'harmfulness' of death consists in the denial of possible future experience; thus we should say that it is the pre-mortem person who is harmed by their own death, because this is the subject who, after all, is robbed of future existence. One could argue that the same reasoning applies straightforwardly in the case of non-human animals as well: since it is independently plausible to think that all animals have a basic interest in continuing to exist [4], in killing one, we are violating a basic interest, and in violating this interest, we are harming a pre-mortem self.

But this is already far too intellectual and, in my view, not really necessary anyway; which brings me to my second point. As a vegan abolitionist [5], my view is this: because fundamental interests [6] are species-independent, membership in a particular species is not a prerequisite for membership in the class of beings to which fundamental moral concern ought to be extended. Simply put, the moral reasons in virtue of which it’s wrong for a human to kill another human — even in such a way as to ensure the death is as painless as possible; indeed, even instantaneous — are equally reasons for thinking this is impermissible in the case of non-human animals. [7] As I see it, the alternative double standard is ultimately just speciesism of one form or another.

Josh’s second question comes in the form of an interesting dilemma-posing thought experiment. He writes:

"I got the impression from your original comments that you think that, if it were necessary for humans to eat meat, in the sense that, if we didn't, we would fail to get some essential nutrient and so eventually die, it would be permissible to eat animals. Am I right about that? If I am, then I wonder what you think about this. Suppose that it were necessary for us to eat meat in this sense. Would it then be permissible for us to eat one another? If you say no, as it seems to me you should, it seems to me that you are according humans and non-human animals different sets of basic rights, which, I take it, is something you want to avoid." 

This is, indeed, a tricky question, one that’s been exercising me for a while now, ever since Josh first posed it to me.  In response, I would begin by directing the reader’s attention to an instructive passage from Kymlicka and Donaldson [8], a passage which I believe holds the key to framing a plausible vegan response to the dilemma Josh poses.

"...[T]his term [inviolability] does not mean that basic rights are absolute and exceptionless.  This is not true in either the human or animal case, as in cases of self-defence.  Human beings have an inviolable right to life, but killing another human being is permissible if it is done out of self-defence or necessity.  So, too, with animals.  There is also a historical dimension to the issue of inviolability.  At different stages of human history, or in particular contexts, humans have had to harm and/or kill animals in order to survive.  In that sense, too, basic inviolable rights are not absolute or unconditional.   

"This raises a more general point about the nature of justice: namely, that it only applies in certain circumstances — what Rawls (following Hume) calls the 'circumstances of justice.'  Ought implies can: humans only owe justice to each other when they are in fact able to respect each other's rights without jeopardizing their own existence.  Rawls calls this the requirement of 'moderate scarcity:' justice is necessary because there isn't an unlimited pool of resources such that everyone can have everything that they want; but for justice to be possible, the competition for resources must be moderate rather than severe, in the sense that I can afford to recognize your legitimate claims without undermining my own existence. 

"We can contrast this with what are sometimes called 'lifeboat cases,' when there is too little food or shelter for all to survive.  In these lifeboat conditions, the most extreme actions may need to be contemplated.  In order to avoid everyone on the boat dying, one person may be sacrificed, or sacrifice themselves, and various proposals have been made about how to decide who should live and who should die.  But the existence of such extreme lifeboat cases tells us nothing about the basic rights we owe each other in the normal case where the circumstances of justice do apply.  In moderate scarcity, rather than lifeboat cases, murdering other humans for food or shelter is wrong."

(Underlining added) 

The potential application of these remarks to the case Josh describes is clear enough: the circumstances of justice, one could argue, simply do not apply in a world like this; indeed, to a vegan, the world itself is essentially just one big survival situation (morally speaking).  In such a world, we would have no choice but to kill and eat animals in order to survive.

To be sure, this is not (yet) an altogether satisfying response; though it does, I think, contain the makings of one.  Though promising as far as it goes, the problem is that, as it stands, it does not really address the full force of Josh’s challenge, since now the question has become: in virtue of what, by vegan lights, are we justified in viewing the circumstances of justice as continuing to hold between one another, but not between ourselves and non-human animals?  Appeals to ‘necessity’ are no use here either, since our survival in this world could equally be obtained by killing (and eating) one another.  Why, then, should we not regard this as equally morally permissible?  Indeed, wouldn’t our failure to do so constitute the very essence of speciesism?

The short answer, I think, is: yes.  To understand ourselves as no longer in the circumstances of justice with non-human animals in such a case, even while retaining this standing with our fellow humans, would amount to a form of speciesism; I cannot see a way around this.  Now, if you are vegan, this might appear to be a somewhat awkward point to concede; thought it is not, I think, a damning one, for reasons that should become clear in a moment.  But first, consider the following alternative. Suppose one were to argue that it actually would be morally permissible to kill and eat humans in such a world, stressing, all the while, the following qualification: the equal permissibility of killing human and non-human animals in this scenario does not automatically entail that one is morally obligated to show no preference between the two.  If this much is accepted, then perhaps vegans could consistently maintain that, in the scenario Josh describes, preference could legitimately be shown for killing non-human animals (over humans) in order to survive?  If the former strategy appears somewhat awkward, this one is bound to seem downright lawyerly in its verbal maneuvering, and I doubt very much that there are many who would be persuaded by it.  At the moment, then, perhaps the only thing one can say for sure is that, if you are a vegan, such a world would be morally tragic whatever the correct response turns out to be.

As it happens, I myself feel that the first strategy is the correct response.  In saying this, however, I am opening the door to a very natural objection.  In particular, some might insist that my countenancing speciesism in this hypothetical scenario fatally undermines any supposed reasons of principle I might cite for rejecting it in this world.  The claim, then, is that I cannot consistently have it both ways; what goes for the one case, goes for the other. This objection is overblown. To see that this is so, note that, by itself, the fact that some, probably most, vegans (myself included) would feel compelled in such a case to accept solidarity with their own species over countenancing the equal permissibility of killing human and non-human animals really lends nothing at all in the way of support to the strong conclusion that we are secretly, deep down, tacit speciesists — any more than my choosing to kill a complete stranger over my partner in an extreme ‘lifeboat’ type of scenario implies that, deep down, part of me harbours a secret desire to kill strangers.  In short, if my response to Josh’s dilemma reveals anything, it is that speciesism, of the sort we are considering here, is nothing if not a tragic, last-ditch, moral compromise that vegans would view themselves as forced to make.  On that note, it struck me that this scenario is potentially very interesting to consider from the perspective of Josh’s notion (sub Hursthouse) of the ‘moral remainder,’ or ‘moral residue.’ In such a world, it seems to me (and, if I’m not mistaken, to Josh as well) that our killing/eating behavior would accrue an enormous moral debt in just the sense he describes in his post.  Of course, my initial suggestion — that the truly admirable thing to do would be to simply not incur such debt in the first place — would not apply here. Indeed, the global condition of our species in such a world would seem to be one of moral emergency; the cost of survival itself involving a sort of ‘moral tax’ that we would have no choice but to pay. One response would be to stress that we have a standing duty to bring about the circumstances of justice where they don’t currently obtain. [9] So, with this in mind, in response to Josh’s dilemma vegans can and should maintain that, however we understand our moral responsibilities toward non-human animals in the immediate interim in such a world, our long-term responsibility is clear: we would be under a moral obligation to seek out alternative means of survival; means that do not require us to kill animals. What’s more, given our considerable ingenuity as a species, this would presumably be well within our reach.

Most important of all, however, is to bear in mind Kymilcka and Donaldson’s final point in the passage above — which is simply to remind us that, whatever our feelings about what we might, or even must, do in these hypothetical ‘moral emergency’ scenarios, such philosophizing really tells us little to nothing about what we should do in the here and now.  In other words, (thankfully!) we do not live in the sort of world Josh raises for consideration; it is not necessary to kill and eat animals to survive.  In this world, I submit, we do find ourselves in the circumstances of justice with animals.[10]

In closing, and at the risk of sounding too clichéd, I would just add that it really is the essence of philosophical inquiry to examine one’s own life first and foremost. I’m not sure I’d go as far as Socrates in saying that the unexamined life is not worth living, but I do feel that we owe it to ourselves to examine, and re-examine, our convictions (and our assumptions) from time to time and, most importantly, be prepared to revise, or even reject, them should we come to feel that, on reflection, they are no longer worthy of our continued allegiance. This is particularly important with respect to our consumptive decisions, since, arguably, these are the decisions that have the most direct impact in the world — not only on our own health and well-being (physical, spiritual, moral), but also on that of the planet and, indeed, the other beings (human and non) with whom we share this world. At the end of the day, of course, this is all just words; and words can only take us so far. If anyone is interested in learning more about these issues, I would highly recommend the documentary film A Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home  — which, unlike some films of its kind, is every bit as powerful and tastefully done as it is watchable and (for the most part) non-graphic. On a personal note, I would add that this film is what compelled me to go vegan, by helping me to find the courage to realize that my own consumptive behavior (as a vegetarian of almost ten years) was still fundamentally out of sync with what I innately knew to be right, but had long ignored.

Thanks again to Josh for the opportunity to post my response on his blog, and, of course, for the interesting (and ongoing!) debate about these important issues.

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[1] By "ethical vegan" I mean someone whose veganism derives from the belief that animals have an intrinsic moral status as beings that ought always to be treated as ends in themselves. The term is sometimes used to differentiate vegans of this sort from those whose veganism is motivated by, e.g., health concerns, religious prescription, or environmental reasons.

[2] The truth of this notwithstanding, one might still wonder what veganism would entail if (contrary to fact) it actually was not possible to be at least as healthy on a balanced, nutritionally responsible vegan diet as an omnivore diet; that is to say, if being vegan meant being less healthy overall than nutritionally responsible omnivores. This has actually come up in conversation a couple times for me and, though I confess I've not really thought it through in any great depth, my gut reaction has always been to say that one ought to still be vegan. Some vegans might think that, even if this is the right response generally speaking, there is in principle some threshold (of unhealthiness) beyond which it would simply be unreasonable for veganism to imply that one ought nevertheless be prepared to accept. Then again, other vegans might deny this. Thankfully, this scenario is counterfactual only; it is possible to be perfectly healthy on a nutritionally responsible vegan diet. But even so, it behooves vegans to consider it carefully, since we should all of us, vegan and non, aspire to better understand the logic of our own convictions. At the moment, I confess that I'm not sure where I stand on this 'threshold' question.

[3] A more promising objection strategy (according to some) is to stress that, even granting for the sake of argument that we ought not to use animals for any of the reasons considered so far, the case of medical experimentation is not as clear-cut. Here, one might argue (indeed, even some self-styled ethical ‘vegans’ argue this), we are morally justified in using/killing animals since, had we not used animals in this way, many humans would surely have died over the years (and, indeed, would die in the future), bereft of the life-saving medicines and treatments we would otherwise have acquired. In short, one might argue that we have an overriding interest based in our own survival (which, presumably, is as necessary a reason as any) that justifies using animals; simply put, the alternative is a ‘sacrifice’ we should not have to make. The right response to this, I think, is clear enough. Here I defer to Will Kymlicka and Sue Donaldson, who elaborate the response as follows. On p.44 (Kindle edition) of their book Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (Oxford University Press, 2011), they write:

 "...[T]o view this as a sacrifice is already to misunderstand the moral situation. After all, there are countless medical technologies and medical advances that don’t exist today because we refuse to use human subjects for invasive experiments. It is hard to overestimate the advances that medical science could have made by now if researchers had been able to use human subjects, rather than imperfect animal stand-ins. Yet we do not view this as a sacrifice. We do not wake up every day lamenting all that untapped knowledge; we are not bitter about the restriction on human subjects that has so hampered medical advance; we do not worry that an overly squeamish attitude about respecting the rights of a few humans is standing in the way of longer and healthier lives for the rest of us. Indeed, anyone who viewed prohibitions on using humans as research subjects as a sacrifice would be seen as morally perverse. We fully understand, in the human context, that medical knowledge must advance within ethical boundaries, or it simply isn’t knowledge that we have a right to. This may force us to be more creative about how we learn, or to be more patient in waiting for results. Either way, it’s not something we view as a sacrifice. It’s a recognition that a world in which better or longer lives for the many are purchased by sacrificing the few is not a world worth living in.  

"It will require a huge adjustment for societies to accept that medical knowledge gained by harming and killing animals is not knowledge to which we are entitled. But the costs of the adjustment would be temporary. After a few decades in which new practices became customary, and a new generation of researchers trained, animal experimentation would be perceived much as human experimentation is viewed today. Its prohibition would not be viewed as a cost, just as the absence of human experimentation is not viewed as a cost." 

[4] As Francione puts it (paraphrase), "To say that a being who is sentient has no interest in continuing to live is like saying that a being with eyes has no interest in continuing to see." I am not sure exactly where he says this, but it can be found on his website.

[5]Vegan abolitionism is the view that there simply are no grounds for our using, and killing, animals period. Abolitionism thus contrasts with what is known in the literature as "welfarism;" which is the view that there is nothing inherently wrong, in principle, with using, and even killing, animals for human ends, provided that we do so in a way that is ‘humane.’ Peter Singer is a good example of a well-known contemporary welfarist; Gary Francione is perhaps the most well-known vegan abolitionist.

[6] Roughly, our interests in not being abused, enslaved, physically exploited, killed, eaten, and so on.

[7] It’s conceivable that one could object that part of the problem here is that, all due respect to Nagel, it actually is not entirely clear just what’s morally wrong with painlessly, instantaneously, killing a person — provided, of course, the victim has no prior knowledge of their immanent death. To be sure, it’s hard to imagine anyone seriously raising such a concern beyond the context of the philosophical armchair, but nevermind that. The response is clear enough: we don’t need to know, with exhaustive philosophical precision, why something is wrong in order to know that it’s wrong — and we certainly do know that it’s wrong, other things being equal, to kill someone.

[8] Will Kymlicka and Sue Donaldson, Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 40-41; Kindle edition.

[9] This point is owed, once again, to Kymlicka and Donaldson (Ibid.)

[10] Kymlicka and Donaldson allow that there may be isolated communities of humans (in this world) whose survival depends on hunting animals; such communities, they say, might plausibly be regarded as not within the circumstances of justice with animals. (Ibid.)


© Adam Curran Reid 2013. All Rights Reserved.

New Developments

Since I tried to defend fishing, my friend and colleague at Hopkins, Adam, has been vigorously defending the fish.  Beginning with some very challenging comments he posted on my first entry, he and I have been in near constant dialogue for about a week now.  I have learned a lot from talking with him.  In particular, I've realized that I was wrong about a few things, and that there are several issues I still need to address before I can feel good about fishing.  In a way that's a bummer because I'm really enjoying all the fishing I've been doing, but it's also really great because this sort of helpful feedback and criticism is precisely what I was hoping I might be able to get by publishing some of my thoughts.  Thanks to Adam for that.  And for that matter, thanks more generally to everyone else who has been reading and talking to me about my post.  I have really enjoyed it so far, and I sincerely hope for more of the same in the future.

Anyway, I've invited Adam to collect together some of the ideas he's put forward in our discussions over the last few days and post them as a guest author.  He's already put something together and should post it sometime soon.  I thought that would be a good thing for a couple of reasons.  First, if you're really interested in this issue, I think you'll find it helpful to look at Adam's comments, since he defends a position very different from the one I suggested in my last post.  And second, Since I've come to feel that my views need to be revised in light of his comments, I'm considering writing a follow-up post where I try to deal with some of the issues he brings up.  If I do that, it will be helpful for anyone interested to be able to refer to his comments.

In Defense of Fishing

Recently I’ve had some experiences that have gotten me thinking again about whether or not it’s acceptable to kill animals:  I took up fly fishing, and I read a couple of pieces by Michael Pollan, first an article called “The Modern Hunter-Gatherer” and then the book whence that article is adapted, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (New York, NY:  Penguin, 2006).  I’d like to articulate some of my thoughts on the matter here, for my own benefit if for no one else’s.  Among other things, I want to think about what role, if any, the gut-level inclinations to believe or assent to deontic or evaluative claim that some philosophers call “moral intuitions” really play in thinking about what to do, how to live, and what matters and how much (philosophers call this practical reasoning).  And in a more practical vein, I want to figure out whether or not I can keep up this new hobby in good conscience. 

There are lots of different kinds of animals and lots of different ways to kill them, but all I want to talk about here is doing the sort of thing I did the other day.  I went out to the Gunpowder River north of Baltimore and fished healthy populations of brown, brook, and rainbow trout with dry flies, or hooks made to look like flies that float on the top of the water and, if you’re lucky, trick the fish into thinking a tasty bug is floating over their heads.  As it happens I didn’t catch anything, but if I had, I would have killed the fish as quickly and painlessly as possible, and afterwards I would have eaten as much of the animal as I know how to make any use of.  Granted, this is a very particular case; if the truth be told, I suspect it has some wider ramifications, and I may say a bit more about these in a future post.  But as it has long seemed to me that the best way to make any headway in one’s thinking about ethical matters is to focus on the most specific cases one can, I want to begin with just this case.

So is there any reason to think it is not acceptable to do what I set out to do, to catch, kill, and eat a non-endangered species of trout in the ways I’ve described?

With the world’s population now over seven billion, one has to consider the possibility that it’s just not fair for any one person to eat an animal.  In general, one can coax a lot more meals out of the plants, insects, etc. that animals eat than from the animals themselves.[1]  This is why you find fewer and fewer organisms as you start going the higher up the food chain (e.g., there is a lot more clover on the earth than there are lions).  Given that this is so, it’s possible that there are so many people on the earth today that there is just not enough arable land to support the number of animals it would take for everyone on the earth to eat meat regularly or even at all; similarly in the case of ocean critters:  it’s possible that there are so many people on earth that there is just not enough ocean to support the numbers of sea critters there would need to be for everyone to eat seafood regularly.  I believe I read some time ago that we’ve already reached the point where this sort of situation obtains for relatively high frequencies of meat-eating and amounts of meat, like 1/2lb. meat per person per day.  But I’m not sure about this.  If anyone can point me toward hard data on this score I’d be interested to see it.  In any case, the relevant question for my purposes is just whether or not there are so many people on the planet that I can’t sustainably eat a wild brown, brook, or rainbow trout a few times a year.  I don’t know the answer to this question, so this is something I’ll have to look into.  But if there are, then I am happy to admit that I ought not to be eating these fish that often, since, I take it, there is nothing special about me that entitles me to take more than my approximately 1/7,000,000,000th of the world’s food.

Setting aside concerns about fairness to other people, though, are there any other reasons I ought not to have gone fishing?

One reason is that it may not be fair to the fish.  In killing an animal to eat it, we are requiring it to give up quite a bit.  If we have to do this in order that we might keep on living ourselves, then our demand seems fair and reasonable.  But if we don’t, then it’s no longer clear that this is so.  Given, then, that one can meet all of one’s nutritional requirements and feel great even if one never eats meat, or for that matter any animal product whatsoever, you might think worry that we are asking too much.  Is the sacrifice we require of the trout when we catch and kill it excessive?

That it is can seem obvious if we think of ourselves as inflicting considerable pain on a fish when we kill it and if we regard as the only reward that comes from killing and eating the fish the opportunity to eat a tasty meal.  It seems that a gustatory experience could ever be so good as to justify causing such suffering.  But I think this line of thought is mistaken:  the pain is less severe and the rewards more numerous than it supposes.

As for the pain, the amount of physical and psychological stress on a properly-caught and -dispatched fish during those processes is, to all appearances anyway, not really that much.  Ideally the hook goes through the fish’s lip rather than deeper in the throat or lower, and after getting several hooks stuck in my own fingers, I can tell you that that just can’t hurt that much.  For what it’s worth, I imagine that in the following passage, David James Duncan, author and fly fisherman, describes the experience of being caught on a fly more-or-less accurately (though I doubt trout are cognitively quite so sophisticated as the passage makes them out to be):

Deploying two troops of teeth, the trout clamped down viciously upon the ant….The trout crunched the ant again and again, but as it did so there came a whole bevy of bad businesses:  the trout was swimming down, but it was going up; this sort of thing should never happen.  And there was a pain in its mouth which its Racial Memory identified as toothache, a malady the poor trout had believed itself immune to.[2]

I take it that being reeled in is, as the passage suggests, more tiring and confusing than anything else:  mostly it just involves trying to swim away without making any headway.  And once one gets the fish reeled in, the idea is to kill it as quickly and efficiently as possible.  There are several ways to do this.  What seems best to me is to first hit it on the head with a piece of wood or a rock to stun it and then to use the method shown here.  I realize this may seem pretty gruesome, but in fact it makes for a death that is not only very quick but, compared to, say, being eaten alive by a raccoon or a bird right out of the water, presumably relatively painless as well.  If you don’t believe me, contrast that last video with this one of an eagle grabbing fish out of the water, and keep in mind that if the fish don’t suffocate before the bird begins to eat them, they will be eaten alive. 

As for the rewards of catching and eating trout, they are far more numerous than just a tasty meal, though that reward by itself is certainly not negligible.  Besides taste, there is to begin with the satisfaction of knowing exactly where the fish you plan to eat came from, at least roughly what kind of life it lived, how it was killed, and what its diet was like.  Information like this is hard to come by when you’re dealing with fish from the grocery store, and it can tell you quite a bit.  For instance, it can tell you something about the impact on the relevant ecosystem of harvesting the fish, about the quality of the fish’s life and death, and about its nutritional quality.  And that information can help you to make a more informed decision about whether or not it would be a good idea to eat the fish, from both an ethical and a nutritional standpoint.  Compared to eating a fish regarding which you know none of this sort of information, it is simply a delight to eat a fish that you know was sustainably harvested, lived a normal, healthy life, was killed humanely, and was not fed food fish ought not to eat or pumped full of antibiotics and hormones.  There’s also the sense of connection to and fundamental dependence on the land one gets by harvesting one’s own food, a sense hard to come by for city-dwellers like myself.  And of course there’s the fact that fish are food, and eating them makes it possible for us to continue living our own lives.

These are rewards of fishing that one can pretty easily appreciate even if one has never fished.  But there’s another reward of which that’s not true, or of which that at least was not true for me.  I have in mind the experience of being absolutely rapt, of being so engrossed in one’s surroundings that one ceases even to think, let alone to be aware of anything beyond the river, the rod, the fly, and the fish.  Pollan does a nice job of describing this experience of total mindfulness in the opening paragraph of his article “The Modern Hunter-Gatherer.”[3]  He’s talking there about hunting wild pigs, but if I understand him right, the experience is basically the same.

Walking with a loaded rifle in an unfamiliar forest bristling with the signs of your prey is thrilling. It embarrasses me to write that, but it is true. I am not by nature much of a noticer, yet here, now, my attention to everything around me, and deafness to everything else, is complete. Nothing in my experience has prepared me for the quality of this attention. I notice how the day’s first breezes comb the needles in the pines, producing a sotto voce whistle and an undulation in the pattern of light and shadow tattooing the tree trunks and the ground. I notice the specific density of the air. But this is not a passive or aesthetic attention; it is a hungry attention, reaching out into its surroundings like fingers, or nerves. My eyes venture deep into thickets my body could never penetrate, picking their way among the tangled branches, sliding over rocks and around stumps to bring back the slenderest hint of movement. In the places too deeply shadowed to admit my eyes, my ears roam at will, returning with the report of a branch cracking at the bottom of a ravine, or the snuffling of a. . .wait: what was that? Just a bird. Everything is amplified. Even my skin is alert, so that when the shadow launched by the sudden ascent of a turkey vulture passes overhead I swear I can feel the temperature momentarily fall. I am the alert man.

Me fishing the Gunpowder.

This meditative state of heightened awareness I find remarkably relaxing, so much so that it, together with the incredible sense of calm that comes from spending a few hours on a serene and secluded river away from the hustle and bustle of city life, makes fishing one of the best ways to unwind I know.

Upon reflection, then, it seems to me hardly clear that what we have in this case is an unfair exchange, so I’m not convinced that I did anything wrong on this score.

There is, however, another set of considerations that suggests to me not that I ought not to have gone fishing, but that I need to be very careful about the way I go about it.  For it seems to me that even if there are no good environmental reasons to worry about killing trout, and even if the sacrifice an angler requires of the fish she catches and kills is not excessive, she might still be doing something reprehensible in catching, killing, and eating a trout.  This is because, from an ethical point of view anyway, it seems it also makes a difference both how one thinks and feels and what one says about killing and eating a trout and how one lives one’s life subsequently, so much so that these things can make the difference between a despicable and a venerable fisherman. 

I think the best way I can explain what I have in mind is by setting forth two very different ways of killing and eating a fish.

On the one hand, one might dispatch the fish clumsily and thoughtlessly, giving no thought to the fish’s discomfort.  One might regard the fish as basically an inanimate thing and killing a fish an act no more interesting from an ethical point of view than, say, chopping a log.  One might even make fun of the fish, thinking or saying how stupid it is because it can be fooled by artificial flies, many of which honestly don’t look too much like insects (consider this one).  And in either of these cases, one might later give no more thought to eating the fish than one might give to eating a French fry.

On the other hand, though, one might regard the catching and killing of the trout as a solemn affair and do so with a deep sense of respect for and gratitude to the fish, taking care throughout the process to be as kind as possible to it and to remain mindful of what one is putting it through.  One might thank the fish for giving up its life, as I understand Native Americans and other hunter-gatherers are wont to do,[4] and as Pollan himself did in a toast he reports in the following passage:

I passed the platters of chicken and corn and proposed a toast.  I offered thanks first to my hosts-cum-guests, then to Joel Salatin and his family for growing the food before us (and for giving it to us), and then finally to the chickens, who in one way or another had provided just about everything we were about to eat.  My secular version of grace, I suppose, acknowledging the various material and karmic debts incurred by this meal, debts which I felt more keenly than usual.[5]

One might even go so far as to make and keep promises to the fish to make as much use as possible of its body and to live out the rest of one’s life, which is made possible in part by the fish’s death, in such a way as to make its death worthwhile—say by helping to protect endangered trout habitat, or by achieving something noteworthy in the arts.  (The thought with this last promise being that not every kind of life is such that the fact that eating a fish would help to prolong it is a good reason to eat a fish.  Rather, I submit, this is true only of admirable lives.)

It seems to me plain that while something rankles in the former scenario, anyone who behaves in the way I describe in the latter is admirable.  Indeed, I’ll even go so far as to say that what we have in the former scenario approaches murder, while in the latter we have something more like a sacrament.  But why should it make so much of a difference to our evaluation of an angler’s act how he thinks, feels, and speaks about it and how he acts subsequently?

As for the angler’s thoughts and feelings, I should say I think that an angler can only be partly blamed for any inappropriate thoughts or feelings she may have while fishing, since it seems we are not totally in control of these aspects of our inner life.  Still, insofar as our thoughts and feelings about fish and fishing reflect our views on those topics (and, for what it’s worth, I take it this is so to a considerable extent), I think it does make sense to praise or blame people for their thoughts and feelings.  For our views are under our control, and some, like the view that trout deserve some respect and consideration from us, are better than others, like the view that they deserve none. 

As for the angler’s words, I think they make a difference because I believe that fish, as living things, have some degree of dignity, which we ought to respect, and because I think that one way we can do that is by saying appropriate things about and to them (by thanking them for their sacrifice, for instance). 

I think an angler’s subsequent actions matter for a different reason, a reason I’ll need to introduce some jargon to explain.  Suppose you make a promise to a friend and then fail to keep it for some good reason.  Suppose too that whatever kept you from fulfilling your promise came up so suddenly and was so urgent that it was impossible to contact your friend to let them know beforehand that you weren’t going to be able to keep your promise.  If you do something like this, it seems clear that you ought to do something to make it up to your friend.  At the very least, you ought to explain to them what happened.  Better, though, would be to get them a small gift and offer to do something for them.  However that may be, the important point is that some philosophers call this obligation to make it up to your friend that you incur when you break your promise a moral remainder or residue.[6]  In more general terms, we can say that a moral remainder or residue (at least as I understand the notion) is, roughly, an obligation (a) that one incurs when one does something (e.g., when one fails to keep a promise) and (b) whose fulfillment or lack thereof affects the moral status of that act in the performance of which it was incurred (thus, if you make it up to your friend later, your failure to keep your promise is as a result less blameworthy than it would have been otherwise).

Now, it seems to me that catching and killing a fish leaves an angler with a moral remainder, and I think that the reason an angler is admirable if she uses every part of the fish possible, thanks the fish for its sacrifice, and promises the fish to live out the rest of her life in such a way as to make its death count is that she thereby discharges that remainder.

These considerations I find persuasive enough that, for the time being anyway, I plan to keep fishing.  Now that I’ve reflected on what it must be like to be a fish that is humanely killed; on the many rewards of catching and eating wild trout; on the different ways one might think, feel, and talk about doing this sort of thing; and on the ways I might discharge the moral remainder with which one is left when one does so; I feel that it is at least possible to catch and eat trout in a way that I can not only live with, but in fact be proud of, at least if I’m right to think that I can do so without taking more than my fair share of the world's food. 

Of course there are lots of interesting further questions one could examine at this point and about which I certainly plan to think more in the future, and if I cannot come up with decent answers to them, I may still have to abandon this newfound hobby.  Why, for instance, ought we to believe fish have any degree of dignity or deserve respect?  And why should it be the case that performing certain acts should and others not leave one with a remainder to discharge?  Is there any principled way of dividing up the cases?  Do we need a principle?  But perhaps most troublesome, one might worry, as my fiancée Erika did when she read this, that while these considerations do seem to constitute a sufficient defense of my plan to catch, kill, and eat a trout, it seems clear that no analogous considerations could possibly justify murdering and eating a human being.  Why not?  Why should the species of the victim make such a difference here? 

These are all difficult questions answering which necessitates thinking considerably more deeply about a number of issues.  I think I may have a decent answer to at least the last one, and I might spell it out in a future post.  But this post seems to me long enough already, and a good start to a blog that I hope will allow me to share some of my thoughts with my friends and family and to discuss with anyone interested some issues I care about in a spirit of friendly inquiry.

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[1] An obvious exception is organisms like cows and other ruminants that can eat things humans can’t digest (grass, for instance).  I may consider the (non-obvious) moral implications of this fact in a future post.

[2] From The River Why, twentieth-anniversary edition, (San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books, 1983), p. 197.

[3] This paragraph is also in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, p. 334.

[4] The Omnivore’s Dilemma, p. 331.

[5] The Omnivore’s Dilemma, p. 271.

[6] While I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that others speak this way too, I’m familiar with these terms only from Rosalind Hursthouse’s book On Virtue Ethics (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 199), pp. 71-77.