Why eating animals is wrong
This text is a counter position to Why Eating Animals Cannot be Wrong
I view animals as moral patients. Even though they cannot act morally themselves, they have to be considered in our moral decisions.
The reason for that is that they have a subjective experience and thus have their own agency. And thus they can have intentions. Not rational ones but emotional ones. "Emotional" in the sense that they are driven by internal impulses. They feel what they want. But don't rationalize about it.
Comparable to a young child. I think no one can deny that even a 1-year-old has its own agency. That it can want something. Even though no one would also argue that a 1-year-old child rationalizes about something that it wants.
On the other hand, there's us - grown up humans. That do rationalize about their emotional intentions. And thus can also have rational intentions. "Rational" meaning, that I can have a reason, which I let dictate my doing even though it contradicts my emotional intentions.
And thus, we are able to build our society and our lives based on rationality. We build roads in order to get more efficiently from A to B. We build houses in order to stay safe. We build ice cream cafés in order to have a pleasant Sunday afternoon.
But to be more precise, it is not "us" that is building all these things. "Someone" is. It could be me, you or anyone else. And it is virtually never possible to "just build a road" (or anything else for that matter). Resources are need and also land. And it is virtually never the case, that the one that build the roads also owns everything they need. In order to get to those resources and land, the road builder has to negotiate with other humans. The point is, that the road builder cannot simply take everything he needs but rather has to conduct an exchange of interests with people that actually own the resources. The road builder has to give something to the landowner in order for that landowner to give him that land.
But what about the animals that rely on the land that the road will be built on. They have an interest in that matter, too. An interest that has to be equally considered by the road builder. A human might own that land, but "owning land" really only means having control over what OTHER HUMANS can do on that land. "Owning land" does not mean, that humans have the right to ignore animals interests altogether.
But can animal interests really be fully considered? Not fully, but to a degree.
As I have already stated, animals can have emotional intentions. But not rational ones. Thus, it is not possible to negotiate with an animal. It is not possible for the animal to understand the intentions of the road builder, propose a trade and then regulate its own behavior in order to accommodate for that trade. Negotiating with animals is not possible.
But animals occupy most of the land. Would that mean, that we are not morally allowed to build something on most of the land? I don't think so. We rather have the right to accept a certain degree of animal suffering and death. If animals were able to negotiate, we would negotiate with them. But we cannot. And thus we must decide ourselves what an appropriate trade would be. But since animals cannot regulate themselves according to that trade, suffering and death are an unavoidable consequence.
But this suffering and death is only acceptable under the premise that it is the result of the missing ability of animals to have rational intentions and thus be able to negotiate.
All this said, how would animals rationally react to our desire to eat them? We have no reason to believe that animals would agree on that. And thus eating animals can only be viewed as wrong.
Where I went wrong
I previously argued, that we consciously accept animal suffering in order to build our society and our lives. And since we already cross the boundary in accepting animal suffering and death in that regard, why should it be wrong to accept animal suffering and death when eating them.
My conclusion was, that it might be a good step to not eat animal food products, but it cannot be a required one.
The point where I was mistaken is that accepting animal suffering and death when building our society and lives is the same as accepting animal suffering and death when eating them.
But there is a difference. If we could negotiate with animals about build roads, we WOULD. We even would be morally required to. The reason that it is morally acceptable to accept their suffering and death is the fact that we CANNOT negotiate with them.
If we were able to negotiate with animals, we have no reason to assume, that they would agree on us eating them. Obviously, it is thinkable that some animals would actually agree on being eating, like some humans do, but we have no reason to believe that this would be the common case.