Vegan Practically

Philosophers often talk about the “burden of proof.” What it means if you have the burden of proof is that you, not the other person, have the burden of proving that you’re right. In other words you need to provide the arguments and evidence in support of your position. Where the moral permissibility of meat-eating is concerned, where does the burden of proof lie? With the meat eaters or with the people who do not eat meat?

I was recently directed to a very brief ten-year old post about this very question. The author, Thomas Nadelhoffer, maintains that a good default moral rule is to do as little harm as possible. Of course this principle won’t hold as an absolute, but on balance most people think some version of it makes good moral sense.

He maintains that: “Given that the practice of raising and killing animals for human consumption causes pain (and arguably suffering), proponents of the practice owe us a positive argument for its moral permissibility. Moreover, it won’t be enough to show that meat-eating is sometimes permissible—e.g., in cases where plant-based sources of protein and fat are either unavailable or unaffordable. Rather, it will need to be shown that meat-eating is permissible even for those of us for whom the practice is entirely optional. In the meantime, vegetarianism and not omnivorism ought to be the default position, morally speaking.”

There is some philosophical discussion in the comments that might be of interest to some. But, as often tends to be the case when people are asked to provide positive arguments in support of meat-eating, I didn’t find the level of discourse in the comments to be particularly high.

Now, typically the burden of proof is said to lie with the person who is challenging the status quo. In this case, clearly vegans and vegetarians are challenging the status quo. But note that, given the principle of minimizing harm, it’s not clear that the status quo of meat-eating is actually consistent with most people’s stated moral views. Most people believe it’s wrong to cause, support, or contribute to harm if it can be at all avoided. And even in cases where we might think it’s okay to cause harm, or pain that is on balance not harmful because it’s necessary for an overall good outcome (like when a doctor is resetting a broken bone), we don’t endorse serious harm, pain, or suffering for minor pleasures. For example, it’s wrong for me to pull out a handful of hair from your head so I can have some chocolate ice cream, even if that’s the only way I can get the ice cream. Not a particularly uncontroversial claim. On a different level, then, those more basic moral commitments about when causing harm or pain might be justified is the actual status quo.

If that’s the case, then meat-eaters, who appear to believe that their taste preferences justify the animal suffering — the clear harms to animals — endemic in factory farming, are going against the status quo conviction of minimizing harm (especially unnecessary harm). As Nadelhoffer notes, there may be cases where meat eating is necessary as the only way to obtain a nutritionally adequate diet. Not noted, but possible, are cases where cultural tradition or identity might (and here I emphasize “might,” because tradition is not a knock-down argument either) be grounds for an exception. But citing those cases isn’t going to shift the burden of proof from people for whom eating meat is optional. And that’s a good number of people.

One of the claims I make in my work on these issues is that humans’ sense of entitlement to use non-human animals in any way they wish — as food, as entertainment, as clothing, as sport, as workers — is embraced as ideology. To that extent, it’s not easily questioned and is assumed as the natural order of things. Ideologies are not recognized as views in need of defence. Anyone who is offering an alternative that challenges these ideologies is put on the spot to provide reason after reason after reason for people to pause and reflect on their participation in harmful practices (not recognized as harmful).

That helps to put in perspective (for me, anyway) why it’s so hard to navigate the omnivore world as a vegan. Everyone assumes that the burden of proof rests with us. But in fact, given that meat-eating typically involves extreme harm to animals ultimately resulting in their death, and given that there are reasonable (and even tasty) alternatives available, the burden of proof for causing harms lies with those who choose to eat meat.