This is strictly philosophical, mind you, but for some time now I have been thinking through various arguments that purport to “prove” that death is a harm. Recently, in an “animal rights” forum, I wrote a few paragraphs on the topic. The question that instigated the thread was:

I know this is his idea, not mine, so I’d like to source him in an article I’m writing.

Basically, he follows the happy meat logic to it’s ultimate conclusion by saying that if he broke into a neighbors house and killed them by lethal injection while they slept he would have done no wrong.

I refuted that by explicating Peter Singer’s position (Singer, of course, is often the stand-in for “happy meat logic” for abolitionists like Francione). I wrote,

I am not sure “happy meat logic” would support the painless killing of human animals. As Francione often does, it seems to me that that argument is directly tied to Singer’s reasoning, but of course Singer would disagree with painlessly killing humans (most of them) because humans have an interest in continued life. “Happy meat logic” rejects that premise as it relates to animals; to wit, animals do not have an interest in continuing to live.

Someone then qualified my statement with David Sztybel’s defense of Singer. Basically, Sztybel correctly argues that Singer advocates what might be called the precautionary principle: “in the face of ignorance or doubt,” I suggested, Singer believes “we should assume nonhuman animals are future oriented, and therefore, have an interest in continuing to live.”

The comments that followed were various reflections about the “will to live” in all forms of life in an attempt, I suspect, to challenge Singer and indirectly support Francione. I argued that these attempts all fail.

It seems to me that you are all missing Singer’s point. The question is not, “Do living things struggle to survive?” but, “Do living things have a subjectively experienced interest in continuing to live?” Francione’s response to Singer answers the first question: yes, teleologically, all living things struggle to survive (as a biological imperative). That is an obvious empirical claim that Singer wouldn’t challenge. However, to the second question, a teleological approach does not work because it fails to establish that these same living things are subjectively experiencing their struggle to survive as an interest (i.e., they are not thinking to themselves, for example, “I want to still be alive next week”). Singer argues that without an autobiographical sense of self, the answer is that some animals (and insects) probably do not have an interest in continuing to live. However, and this is important, we might be wrong about that. And given the potential significance of making an error on this matter, we ought to give animals the benefit of the doubt whenever possible (i.e., the precautionary principle).

By analogy, consider reproduction. Teleologically, all living things have an interest in propagation (at the genetic level, certainly). But the important question here is does my dog think to herself that she would like to have children, or that she is in existential despair when after trying to conceive she can’t have a child. If the answer is no, then my dog does not have a subjectively experienced interest in procreation, and therefore, spaying her would not be a harm on Singer’s account.

I might add that for this very reason Francione’s deontological argument falls flat when he tries to defend spaying and neutering. He necessarily has to make a consequentalist claim to defend spaying and neutering because all animals certainly have a teleological interest in procreation, and therefore, by parity of reasoning, if Francione argues for an animals’ “right to life” because they have an interest in living, their interest in procreation should similarly be protected by a “right”.

It was then asserted that death is the ultimate harm, to which I summed-up some of my conclusions thus far.

But you stop existing, which means, strictly speaking, there is no you anymore to experience the harm. And if you are not around to experience the harm, how can you say you have been harmed? Singer’s approach, I think, fails for this reason. As I sit now, living is in my subjectively experienced interest. However, once I die, there is no me anymore to experience that interest going unfulfilled. And therefore, how am I harmed? Likewise with Regan’s argument that death is a harm because it prevents me from having future good experiences. Death is, on this account, the ultimate impediment to happiness, as it were. However, as with Singer’s account, it seems to me that since death means the end of you, the experiencing being, then how can we say that you have been harmed by this ultimate impediment to future good experiences? You no longer exist to experience not experiencing those (future good experiences).

And Francione’s argument is teleological, which is complicated, and does not, in my opinion, establish why this teleological interest ought to give rise to moral obligations while others do not. For example, children probably have a teleological interest in procreation, but for consequential reasons, we wouldn’t want to let them realize that. This is to say, Francione is bringing consequentialism in through the backdoor to ground his theory of “rights”. It is the consequences of realizing X interest that determines whether or not we put a “moral fence” around it, and if the consequences are bad, then that “moral fence” comes down.

Natalie Portman wrote an interesting piece supporting veganism for The Huffington Post, a remarkably vegan-friendly mainstream media outlet. Below is a comment I pulled from the thread following Portman’s article that peaked my interest.

The commenter wrote:

We all have different tastes, outlooks, and reasons for eating our references. I don’t think one way is the absolute way. After all we may be a bunch of people, but each one of us are also our own individual. To question something like this is like saying the stranger next to me should do everything exactly like me…nothing more or less

There is an explicit, strong sense of individual liberty here, understood as the right to define your life as you choose and pursue it accordingly, that really permeates our political and social discourses as well. What conclusions can we reach if we really take this commenters proposition seriously? Scanning the vast array of different interests, lifestyles, opinions, and beliefs that seem to define highly individuated Western societies, we can pull out any number of examples to test our commitment to individuality.

Many, many people sexually prefer young children. There is something about a child that interests pedophiles. There are those who can only be satisfied if their sexual encounters involve high levels of aggression, force, and domination. Oftentimes, willing participants are lacking, so the next rational step in pursuit of satisfying the rapists individual preference is sex with the unwilling participant. Some people are of the opinion that ethnic minorities should not live in white communities, or attend white schools, or go to white churches. Some force and some legal discrimination is employed to achieve the desired outcome: living in a white world.

If we are sincere in our conviction that the pursuit of individuality ought to trump other ethical considerations, as the commenter seems to be arguing and a thought that most people strongly hold, these actions are necessarily acceptable. Unless we places limits on how far we can go in our pursuits there are problems.

The commenter recognizes this, and qualifies his/her position:

So should I condemn a person’s beliefs in eating? Or what they eat? If none of us are harming our fellow man, should we? Really?

If no harm is done to their neighbor, brother, or sister, then to each their own. Let them be.

(Who is this “fellow man”? As I mentioned above, many white people don’t see black people as their fellow man.)

We are free to pursue our individuality up to the point where we cause harm. That seems sensible, and I think most people just assume this limit when they espouse their belief in individuality. However, what the commenter doesn’t seem to understand is that this qualification contradicts his/her defense of killing and eating animals. The same is true for everybody else.

Animals can be harmed physically and emotionally and therefore these ethical limits extend beyond the human species. Veganism is healthy at all stages of the life course, so our consumption of animal flesh and their reproductive excrement’s falls into the category of “choice.” And that is when this limit, i.e., causing harm, becomes relevant.

The only rational conclusion is that going vegan is the right thing to do for this commenter, and everybody else.