Luckily for me, as the clocks struck midnight on December 31st 2012, I made the long-awaited decision to become a vegetarian. Therefore, just missing out on the unveiling of the horse-meat scandal.
The very mention of vegetarian brings an unfortunate and predictable response: ranging from general ignorance with ‘what’s the point’, or to, ‘scientifically speaking, humans need to eat meat to survive’. The latter of the two resembles a recent response which Sir David Attenborough gave to an interview in the newspaper, Metro. He was asked, having witnessed some extraordinary forms of intelligence within animals, doesn’t it drive you to become a vegetarian? He simply answered, ‘No. If you understand about the natural world, we’re apart of the system and you can’t feed lions grass’. For me, his response was stunning. I mean, I was physically stunned; speechless.
He does go on to say that ‘… we haven’t got the gut to be totally vegetarian’, and by looking at the shape of our gut and teeth, we have evolved to be omnivores. Even if we cannot be totally vegetarian, does that not mean that we should at least eat meat (and meat products) more wisely? Does Sir David do this? Should we not prevent the suffering of hundreds of thousands of animals, if we can consciously choose to do so? David certainly didn’t extend his answer to anything of the sort.
History sheds some light on the attitudes humans have had towards animals. According to Aristotle, plants exist for the sake of animals, and animals for the sake of humans. Pythagoreans argued that you should care for animals on the basis that their soul could be that of a distant ancestor of yours. The Christian tradition, represented by St. Augustine, deemed it acceptable for Christ to slaughter a swine on the terms that animals cannot reason, and therefore are not in the same supreme sphere as humans. And finally, Rene Descartes declared that animals do not have the ability to feel pain.
All but one of these examples puts human beings above other mammals and animals. Using a term popularised by philosopher Peter Singer, Speciesism is the term used when different values, rules, and rights are given to certain individuals wholly on the basis of their species membership. So in this case, the ethical rights of animals, which I believe they have (if we humans do), are shunned when compared to the desires and needs of humans.