I am delighted that my post has generated so much cogitation. As the debate continues, though, I want my position clearly understood. What I said was that vegans and omnivores alike must examine their roles in the industrial food apparatus and in that context stated that it is intellectually inconsistent to decry animal cruelty while eating a cafeteria cheeseburger. I did not intend to condemn meat-eating — that’s a discussion for a different day. What I did try to do is point to the hypocrisy of eating factory-farmed food (meat and dairy) while simultaneously criticizing the behavior that created it. To do so is intellectually inconsistent. Mariann (in her comment below) is quite right that I do not exclude intellectually inconsistent people from the debate. My view is that we are all intellectually inconsistent in our way. My goal is to incorporate our collective/respective inconsistencies into the debate, rather than pretending they do not exist.
–David Cassuto
Filed under: animal advocacy, animal cruelty, animal ethics, animal law, animal rights, animal welfare | Tagged: animal ethics, animal rights, animal welfare, cheesburger, diet, factory farms, farmed animals, industrial farming, veganism, vegetarianism | 1 Comment »
Animal Blawg 