A Critique of the Moral Defense of Vegetarianism

A Critique of the Moral Defense of Vegetarianism

A Critique of the Moral Defense of Vegetarianism Andrew F. Smith

A CRITIQUE OF THE MORAL DEFENSE OF VEGETARIANISM Copyright Andrew F. Smith 2016 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-55488-8 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission. In accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 2016 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of Nature America, Inc., One New York Plaza, Suite 4500, New York, NY 10004-1562. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. ISBN 978-1-349-71708-8 E-PDF ISBN: 978-1-137-55489-5 DOI: 10.1057/9781137554895 Distribution in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Smith, Andrew F., 1972 A critique of the moral defense of vegetarianism / Andrew F. Smith. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Veg etarianism Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title. TX392.S58 2016 179'.3 dc23 2015027282 A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library.

For Isabel Hawman, the Schuylkill River

Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii 1 An Unsettling Question 1 2 Plant Sentience 11 3 Animism 39 4 The Closed Loop 71 5 Two Objections, One Accommodation 99 6 Loose Ends 121 Notes 131 Bibliography 147 Index 171

Preface For the record, I did not expect to end up as an iconoclastic vegetarian when I began work on this project. I had no intention of even writing a book when I first set out, let alone a book in which I would challenge some of my own most entrenched beliefs. The development of A Critique of the Moral Defense of Vegetarianism has proceeded so quickly that it will take some time for me to fully digest (pun intended) what I have written here. A Critique of the Moral Defense of Vegetarianism comprises two stories, one of exploration and the other of discovery. Initially, I set out to answer a question that occurred to me as I read through the comments of a blog post on the website of a divisive figure in my field. The author of the post suggested that omnivores, not vegetarians, bear the burden of justifying their dietary practices, because omnivorism causes far more suffering and harm than vegetarianism does. Among the numerous responses to the post were several comments that focused on whether or not plants could suffer. They initially were offered in support of a sorry trope that vegetarians are forced to address ad nauseam. Namely, vegetarians are hypocrites because they condone killing and eating plants but proscribe killing and eating animals. In reply came a flurry of responses, including several in which it was (expectedly) emphasized that animals have the capacity to suffer and in fact suffer greatly as a result of practices that are common today when raised and killed for food. Plants do not, the respondents claimed. After all, in contrast to animals, plants are not sentient. This is a default assumption maintained by just about everyone who weighs in on the subject, whether in the philosophical literature or in the popular press. And since good

x Preface reasons can be offered even to avoid killing animals painlessly for food, the charge of hypocrisy gets deflected. I wondered, though, how the defense of vegetarianism would have to change if plants actually were sentient. I also questioned if I was warranted in presupposing without any real evidence that plants are not sentient in order to defend my own vegetarianism. So I dove headfirst into a body of scientific literature by researchers who study what has come to be called plant neurobiology and was amazed stupefied by what I found. When I say I was stupefied, I mean that I felt very stupid. Dumbstruck. There is a great deal of empirical evidence to support that plants are indeed sentient. This means that a common moral defense my go- to defense of vegetarianism fails, as I address in Chapter 2. So I went ahead and developed an alternative defense and thought I had a halfway decent journal article on my hands. The thing is, I have trouble separating my research from my personal life. And I am getting worse at doing so as time goes on. I have developed the habit of processing my own baggage through my professional writing. So it wasn t enough that I had what I thought was a publishable essay. I had to spend much more time considering how my own practices would have to change. This is when things got complicated, when cracks in my self- understanding and sense of my place in the order of things began to appear. I realized that the new and better defense of vegetarianism that I had developed still was not good enough. I faced bigger, much bigger, problems. That my problems were are much bigger did not necessitate a particularly long book. Sometimes even complex issues can be unpacked fairly expeditiously. My difficulties at this point instead have to do with implementation, with actually heeding my conclusions. But I suppose this puts me in good company with quite a few past and present philosophers. So that is the beginning of my story of exploration. I invite you to continue reading if you would like to see the plot unfold. I now provide a brief sketch of my story of discovery a story whose development has been even more surprising to me than

Preface xi my story of exploration. It also is a very personal story, meant more for me than for you, to be honest, that I had no idea I needed to tell. No, that is not quite right. I was not aware that there was anything to tell until my initial article- length project began to morph into a book. In November 2007, the day after I defended my dissertation, my maternal grandmother died. I did not visit my Grandma Hawman all that often. Even when I was a child, we lived a daylong car drive from her home in eastern Pennsylvania. But she nevertheless was a powerful figure in my life. She was the genuine matriarch of my mother s large family, and she represented something of an anchor for me. This is hard for me to explain, because it is hard for me to understand. Permit me simply to say that I felt deeply connected to her. The world at least made some sense as long as I knew I could enjoy a warm afternoon chatting with her on her front porch or spend an evening with her playing card games. Then she was gone. I went from the high of my dissertation defense to her funeral in a matter of days. And I never properly processed her death. I am not sure I ever mourned her loss, although I did not realize this until my story of discovery associated with this book began. All I can say is that I have been at sea in a number of ways since she passed away, and I did not realize just how much her death contributed to this. I am happy now to be piecing things back together. And while my discovery is in no way a final piece of the puzzle, it most assuredly is an important one. I now live in Philadelphia just a stone s throw from the beautiful Schuylkill River. I run almost every day in Fairmount Park along its banks. I love this place. The city has been very welcoming, for which I am so thankful. And no part of it has been more welcoming than the Schuylkill. Now I know why. You see, my Grandma Hawman is buried in a cemetery upstream in Reading that also is a stone s throw from the Schuylkill. Yes, that is right. All along, it has been my grandmother, who is now interlaced with the river, who has been so welcoming. I did not, could not, see this for years. And while our connection is incomplete for reasons that I explore later, I finally have begun

xii Preface to mourn her death. Because I now see that she was never gone. I hope this makes more sense as the book unfolds. Oh, and I have one more thing to mention about my Grandma Hawman. I never told her that I was a vegetarian. I thought she would not understand, that she would find it difficult to know how to feed me when I visited. So I strategically scheduled visits to avoid meals! The thing is, I now see that I had much more to learn than she did. And I have learned a lot in writing this little book. I hope that you do, too. I look forward to hearing what you have to say about it.

Acknowledgments Because this project came together so quickly, few people had a direct hand in its creation. But that I acknowledge only a handful of people should not be taken as an indication that I basically wrote it alone. I simply doubt that my publisher would condone listing a lifetime full of people whose support and opposition has been integral in the formation of the ideas that you find here. For their inspiration, I must thank Daniel Quinn, Val Plumwood, Matthew Hall, Michael Marder, Graham Harvey, Melissa Nelson, Derrick Jensen, Aric McBay, and Deborah Bird Rose. Reading their work has been life- changing for me, literally. Daniel Quinn s direct and detailed feedback on an early draft of the entire manuscript was both most welcome and incredibly helpful. Naomi Zack provided very helpful comments on the second chapter and pointed out to me a crucial hole in my argument for the transitivity of eating. Moreover, it is she who recommended that I consider transforming the project into a longer work. I thank an anonymous reviewer of the manuscript for extremely thought- provoking comments. Your enthusiastic support means a lot to me. I am grateful to Abioseh Porter for his mentorship and friendship and to Donna Murasko for the generous release time she has provided for this project and others. The editorial and production teams at Palgrave Macmillan have been a pleasure to work with. They are consummate professionals and genuinely nice people. I thank Phil Getz for the strong support he has provided from day one, Alexis Nelson for amicably handling my many niggling questions, and Rachel Crawford and Daniel King for smoothly taking the book through production.

xiv Acknowledgments I give a shout- out to my neighbors in West Philly. Thank you for helping make a new house into a home. I also thank the Schuylkill River Trail and all those who maintain it. You have become a permanent fixture in my life, and I would have it no other way. I thank my parents, Fred and Judy Smith, for a lifetime of love and support. I have not always recognized them for the wonderful people they are. I have some work to do to correct that. My four cats Celie, Hugo, Sasha, and Loki mean the world to me. I dare anyone to deny that they are people! Finally, I offer my gratitude to my amazing wife, Sherrilyn Billger. She is one of the most caring, most perceptive, and most intelligent people I have ever met. The copious comments she provided on the manuscript and the long discussions about it through which she persevered have been invaluable. Thank you, Hon.