Re: Emily's Food and Morality

Emily made a really good point about society labeling people and people labeling themselves based on what they eat. In a part of her blog she mentioned how people will say, "I had chocolate last night, I was so bad." This really hits the nail on the head because it's so true; I never thought of it that way before. She ends her post by asking, "Why are people 'good' or 'bad' based on what they eat?"

Now I'm going to use a little bit of logic by saying the word "bad" is ambiguous, in this dispute "bad" means unhealthy or morally wrong.
The saying goes, "you are what you eat." To some extent I think this is true, the foods we eat determine how healthy we are. The foods we eat even effect our mental functioning to some extent. When people say that they were bad for eating chocolate they mean it in a health sense-- they ate something "bad" for them. So in this context they are not assigning morality to the food. The people who eat the chocolate do not feel morally bad, they feel unhealthy.

When it comes down to the moral implications of eating meat that's a bit more tricky. Are we (morally) bad for eating meat? Well, this depends on what your morals are. If your morals tell you that you should not eat meat, then it is morally wrong to eat meat. If your morals justify consuming animals, then it is not morally wrong to eat meat. We cannot control our morals nor can we force morals upon someone. Laws and society shape our morals, we are taught that stealing is wrong and killing another person is wrong. Since consuming flesh is well accepted in our culture, our moral responsibility is up to us when it comes to the consumtion of animals.

We cannot control how these animals are being treated, and we certainly do not advocate their suffering, but is it our responsibility to feel morally wrong? The blame really should be on these industries and supermarkets. I have tried to find free-range poultry in grocery stores, but the selection is simply not there. So purchasing Purdue and other factory farm suppliers is the only option. It is different if there is a free-range option, but there isn't. Society has nothing to do with how those animals are treated, it is the corporations decision to do these things so that they will make more money.

Animal experimentation is a different story however. Yes, it is the corporations fault for testing on animals, but there are plenty of other options. These alternate options are easy to access and do the same thing, they are just a different brand. These products cost just as much as the products that are tested on animals. We should feel more morally obligated to not use animal tested products for these reasons. To me, it is worse to use products that were tested on animals than to consume animals, because it's so easy and people have no excuse. Yet, like I said before, we cannot control our morals, nor force morals upon someone else.

My questions: Should we spend our time and energy trying to reinstate animal cruelty laws against the politics of factory farms and animal testing, rather than promoting vegetarianism? Do they both have their place?