working things out...

Ethics of a Heterotroph

Veganism is not against the killing of living things. We all kill living things. It is what we have to do in order to live. Humans fall under a category of living beings called heterotrophs, this means that we are incapable of producing our own food, and thus have to eat other things in order to get the things we need to live. Most plants on the other hand are autotrophs, meaning that they produce their own food, i.e. photosynthesis. And so vegans can’t be against killing any living being because if we were, we would die. We eat plants because we have to eat something. The question was never about killing something that was alive, but rather, killing something that consciously wanted to live. 

A plant, while alive, is not aware of its life in the sense that an animal is. Animals are unique form of creation that are capable of observing and contemplating their own existence. Now, I could never prove that other animals are capable of metacognition or the like, but just as much I cannot prove that any other human is capable of that either. The only thing I could ever be sure of is my own thought, and even that is something I could logic out of existence. I look at a person sitting next to me and I don’t know that they are thinking or are capable of thinking or feeling, but I believe that they can and do. The only way to accept the existence of anyones thought but your own, requires a leap of faith that their thoughts and minds exist. In that same way I can observe a non-human animal and conclude that they too have thought and feeling based on the same reasoning that I could conclude so with a human. Animals react emotionally; they play, they mourn, they scream, they cry, and show excitement. Just because they cannot speak to me with words does not mean that they are not talking to me. Marc Bekoff writes: “It’s because animals have emotions that we’re so drawn to them; lacking a shared language, emotions are perhaps the most effective means pf cross-species communication.” Emotions are not a division between us and “beasts” but rather they are a unifying condition that we can use to communicate with them. For all the reasons that I can assume other humans have emotions, I can find in animal behavior as well. The idea that non-human animals are living machines, that simply react to external stimuli that would appear to mimic emotion, is an old one, and one that is all but gone from the scientific community. 

So, if we are to talk of morals that we owe to one another to uphold, then why do we draw the line of moral application at the rigid boarders of our genetic code? The boundary of our species is not means for moral inclusion and exclusion. We respect one another, or at least try to,  not because we are “human” but because we believe that not doing so would harm the other person’s spirit. We acknowledge each other’s emotions and respect that fragile balance of emotion that we are all struggling to keep level. It is not our species relation that we respect in each other, but our humanity. Humanity as in our sense of being, our ability to acknowledge our own existence and act on that knowledge, mindful that those around us are trying to do the same thing. When animals show that same humanity in themselves, we mark it off as coincidence or ethically irrelevant. This injustice is where you would find the basis of veganism. Treating animals well because they are aware of how we treat them. Loving animals because they are capable of loving us back, and resenting our abuse.  

Killing life is unavoidable, as an inherent part of the human condition. But killing life that decidedly wants to live is what we can avoid. If there is no moral imperative to not kill a dog, a cat, or a cow, then certainly there is no imperative to not kill a human. All of those beings, human and not, are capable of an emotional spectrum that is the basis for why we feel it is wrong to kill any of them. Are “pro-life” activists concerned about people killing fetuses because those fetuses are human or because they believe that they are people? It was never about the species, but about the emotional existence that we feel we must believe in in order to accept anything about us. That is one example that many people might not relate to due to the fact that they are not “pro-life”, but the concept may still stand even without an agreement about that particular example. 

If we accept that all life is “just life” and that we as heterotrophs must kill to live, then it is true that there is not moral difference between killing and eating a carrot, or a  cow, or a human. Now, please understand that I am not in favor of cannibalism, but likewise I am not in favor of killing anything/ anyone who is capable of wanting to live. That is the all important separation between the life of animals and non-animal life, that we animals can want to live. And we aught to respect that.