Utilitarian Defense for Veganism

A Utilitarian Defense for Veganism All around the world, the consumption of animal products, such as meat and milk, are common and accepted practices. The extreme diet of veganism is considered rare and outside of the social norm. To live a vegan lifestyle means refraining from eating meat, fish, dairy, honey, gelatin, and eggs. Those who take up this diet live in a world where they are considered outcasts and their diet is rarely accommodated for at restaurants, family gatherings, and so on. With these drawbacks, it can be questioned why anyone would be willing to give up the accepted, normal diet. Utilitarianism, a consequentialist ethical theory that concerns itself with happiness and the welfare of others, can account for why veganism is needed. If the vegan diet is more widely accepted and practiced, not only will less animals go through needless suffering, but the environment and people’s health will increase dramatically. Because of these reasons, veganism should be a custom everyone partakes in because it will increase the overall happiness for both animals and humans. The most basic question that needs to be addressed is why animals should be included in the moral community in the first place. They do not share the same psychological and complex lives as humans do, so to consider animals seems to be a little peculiar. Kant, a deontologist, offered a reason as to why animals should be considered in the moral community. For him, it is only because if a person has a cruel nature towards animals, the person is at risk to develop a cruel nature towards other humans. The reasoning behind Kant’s position has nothing to do with animals having any intrinsic worth or being able to experience pain or pleasure. Utilitarianism takes into account that animals can experience pleasure and plain, so therefore they must be included in the moral community. Quite different from Kant, Jeremy Bentham elaborates the utilitarian position by saying “the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” (XXX). As noted earlier, animals are not the same as us; they lack the plans and projects that humans can create, they lack our rationality and all our higher faculties. Despite this, the utilitarian, including Bentham, recognize that animals do experience pain and pleasure. For this reason, because utilitarianism requires maximizing pleasure and happiness, animals must be included in our ethical thinking. Because animals are a part of the moral community and must be included in our ethical thinking, it must be examined how the demand for animal products is negatively affecting their wellbeing. Many had, or maybe some even still have, the idea that animals being raised humanely on factory farms. However, over the years, investigations that have been done raised awareness that this is not the case and this brief account will show just how. It is common that many of these factory animals never get to see sunlight or breathe fresh air until they are being sent for slaughter. In order to fatten them up and make them grow faster, these animals are fed drugs and hormones. They are also genetically altered to produce more milk or eggs than they naturally would. Due to growing much more quickly than they would in nature, it is not uncommon for them to cripple under their own weight. This can cause movement impossible, resulting in many deaths from the inability to reach food and water. Each species endures their own struggles inside factory farms. For example, cows are branded, their horns get cut or burned off, and the males are castrated. All of these happen without any anesthetics. Female cows are sent to dairy farms where they are repeatedly impregnated until their bodies give out and when this happens they are sent for slaughter. Another species that are raised in factory farms are turkeys. They naturally have a lifespan of up to ten years, however they are killed at five to six months of age. They are packed into tight spaces with each turkey having less than four square feet of space. Because this close confinement can cause them to scratch and peck at each other, portions of their beaks and toes are cut off with hot blades. Just like with cows, they are given no pain killers. It is only expected that if there was a way these animals are not kept in such horrible conditions if it would be okay to continue an animal product diet. If they can live a pleasure filled life, surely this would fit the utilitarian standard. They are not being harmed and to continue with the normal diet would be okay. This has already been done, according to the labels that are put on some animal products. It is becoming very common to see labels that claim the food is “free range” or “natural”. It is used to make the consumers feel like they are buying from a farm that is being humane to the animals being raised. However, this is not really the case. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines free range as “producers much demonstrate to the agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside”. Adopting a vegan diet will not only save animals from this fate and increase their happiness, but it will also increase human’s happiness. The environment is being damaged greatly to raise animals for slaughter. Thirty percent of the Earth’s land surface and seventy percent of all agricultural land is being used for livestock. Surely there could be a better way to use this land, such as growing more crops to feed humans. Also, seventy percent of all the grain and cereals that are grown are being fed to farmed animals. This means that not only could there be more crops being produced, but this seventy percent can be geared more towards humans consuming it. Not only would an animal-free diet provide more usable land, it would also help with the quality and supply of water. The animals raised for livestock produce about 130 times as much excrement as the entire population of the United States and, because there are no federal guidelines that regulate how factory farms treat, store, and dispose of animal excrement, the way they dispose of it causes water pollution along with destroying the top soil and contaminating the air. As noted in XXX, “meat alternatives would help to alleviate the global water crisis, since livestock production uses a tremendous amount of water” (FORBES). It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce just one pound of meat while it only takes 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of wheat. Without the demand of meat, the supply of water would increase dramatically and could be used for other services. To go with a vegan diet would clearly solve a lot of the problems the environment is encountering. We would have more land that could be used in more productive ways and cleaner, larger supplies of water. Global warming is another environmental issue that is becoming more of an issue every year, and raising livestock largely accounts for why it is such an issue. What causes global warming is when greenhouse gases are released they trap solar energy which in turn warms the earth’s surface. Many put the blame on combustion of fossil fuels in cars and factories for why global warming is occurring. While this is the case, many do not see that factory farms play a huge role as well. Raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined. A staggering fifty-seven percent of these gases are because of livestock and their byproducts. Also, to create room for factory farms means destroying forests. For example, it is the cause of seventy percent of deforestation in the Amazon region of Latin America. Not only does this cause harm to a ton of species, but this causes a release of carbon that was previously stored in the trees. The carbon that is released combines with oxygen, producing carbon dioxide. This allows more light energy in, and if enough of carbon dioxide is produce, it could raise the average temperature by almost three degrees Celsius. Although it does not seem like a lot, but this could be enough to melt glaciers, weather patterns, and other environmental disasters. If veganism were to be adopted, global warming would not be as big of an issue as it currently is because we would have no need to raise livestock. If we continue a diet that contains animal products, the environment is only being more damaged every single day. The Earth is our home and we need to take care of it. A world that is properly taken care of would increase happiness that may not seem so obvious at first, but in the long run global warming along with air pollution and water supply would be improved. A vegan diet would suffice for this, because there would be no need to raise a massive amount of livestock. Besides improving the environment, a diet free of animal products would help make everyone healthier. There have been enough studies to show that meat and any other forms of animal products is no good for the body. The normal diet of meat, eggs and dairy products is too high in cholesterol and saturated fats. This can cause a buildup of plaque in the arteries which in turn leads to blood flow to all areas of the body to be delayed. This can lead to health problems such as heart disease. Also, a diet that contains meat is associated with an increased risk for diabetes and certain cancers.