IS IT WRONG TO EAT MEAT?

I am a meat eater yet animal lover. Does this make me an evil hypocrite? Probably.

Although I have the belief that eating meat is wrong, it seems that I just lack the desire to stop eating it. But why exactly is it that eating meat is wrong, its part of the food chain after all?

I want to draw on a point of equality between humans and animals, that being our equal capacity for pain and suffering. If both myself and the chicken that I ate for lunch are equally capable of feeling pain and suffering then surely it is just as wrong for me to eat a chicken as it is to eat a human.

Bentham and Singer claim that animals have intrinsic moral worth (they are morally valuable in themselves), and that having such intrinsic qualities qualifies attribution of rights. The intrinsic property that animals have is their capacity for pain and suffering, suggesting that if a thing can feel pain then that thing has rights. To continue, if suffering is what grants something moral value (or rights), in turn giving it the right not to be eaten, then this can be extended to suggest that humans and animals are actually ‘equal’ in their capacity to suffer. Should this then mean that there should be rights in place for animals that extend as far as they do for humans?

The argument for pain and suffering appears to differentiate between beings that should be granted moral value and those that shouldn’t. A stone has no moral value and will feel no pain when it is kicked. Both a human and a cow/pig/chicken will feel pain if they are kicked, so ultimately this should grant them moral value. The difference between a stone and a cow is that one has the capacity for pain and suffering and the other doesn’t.

It would seem therefore, that regardless of whether we make the process of killing animals suffering and pain-free, this isn’t enough to justify our exploitation of animals. For if an animal physically can feel pain, (suffering being the intrinsic property that they have), this provides animals with enough of a right NOT to be eaten.

To conclude, if we believe that pain and suffering is something that provides a point of equality between humans and animals, and that we accept that killing a human is wrong because of their capacity to suffer, then we must then also accept that killing animals is wrong for the same reason.