Mohr and Vegetarianism

This week in PHIL 355 we are looking at climaterians — those who choose to cut out animal products out of their diet for environmental reasons (“Climatarian” Cambridge Dictionary). One of the papers we have read is A New Global Warming Strategy: How Environmentalists are Overlooking Vegetarianism as the Most Effective Tool Against Climate Change in Our Lifetimes by Noam Mohr.

Mohr begins his paper by acknowledging that global warming and climate change imposes serious and disastrous consequences on Earth and some course of action is needed to slow down these consequences. Mohr claims that it is “unfortunate” that efforts to deter global warming have solely focused on decreasing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as some scientists claim that the effect of CO2 has been grossly overstated and gases other than CO2 account for most of the global warming crisis (1). This other gas that he and other scientists claim to be “responsible for all global warming” is methane — specifically as a byproduct from agriculture (2).

Mohr argues that the most effective way in reducing methane emissions on a large scale is if humans adopt a vegetarian (no meat) or vegan diet (no animal products) (2). The various benefits of vegetarian diet — besides lower methane emissions — are plentiful. For example, Mohr claims that that this shift to vegetarianism would have little impact on the economy; show an immediate drop in emissions as farm animal turnover is lower than fossil fuel industries; avoids confrontation with capitalists who support fossil fuels; and would be good for the environment where deforestation, irrigation, and desertification would occur on a smaller scale (3).

Mohr leaves the article with two recommendations: organizations should advocate vegetarianism during global warming campaigns; and government policy should encourage vegetarian diets by imposing tax on meat, subsidies for plant agriculture instead of animal agriculture, and more emphasis on vegetarian diets (3).

While I agree with Mohr in that methane emissions from agriculture is a contributor to global warming and something needs to be done about it, I have some questions and concerns about his logic. While obviously this change in diet would provide many benefits to the Earth (as Mohr previously mentioned), he fails to mention the serious implications that I believe may arise when converting to a strictly vegetarian or vegan diet.

For example, we cannot always grow food where we want to; many places on Earth have ecosystems that make farming and maintaining crops complicated or impossible to do. In addition, cutting out meat for many (especially in less developed countries or countries in the Global South that rely on animals as their main source of food) would mean cutting out a huge portion of their daily calories and essential nutrients. With that being said, I feel as though the Global South and other places that rely on animals as their main food source actually farm animals within their means — ie. farming them on a much smaller scale than what we do in the West. Furthermore, Mohr mentions that a shift to a vegetarian diet would have a lesser impact on the economy as opposed to shifting away from fossil fuels (3). While this may be true, I wonder if he has thought about the massive unemployment that would arise due to cutting out an entire industry.

While I myself have been trying to cut back my consumption of meat, I feel as though this may be hard to implement a complete 100% stoppage on a global scale due to our own selfishness; however, I think that Mohr’s recommendations are a good starting point in getting people to start cutting back their meat consumption before beginning a switch to a vegetarian diet.

– Ashley

 

References

Mohr, N. (2005). “How Environmentalists are Overlooking Vegetarianism as the Most Effective Tool Against Climate Change in Our Lifetimes.” An EarthSave International Report, p. 1-5.

“Climatarian,” Cambridge Dictionary Online (n.d). Accessed October 4. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/climatarian

Aldo Leopold’s Narrative on Environmental Ethics: Does it have Anti-Feminist Foundations?

This week, the reading I have chosen to write about is Chaone Mallory’s “Acts of Objectification and the Repudiation of Dominance: Leopold, Ecofeminism, and the Ecological Narrative” where she criticizes some aspects of Aldo Leopold’s work about the ecological narrative. While Leopold’s ideas seem to be an “invaluable contribution to environmental discourse”(Mallory, 59) I agree with how Mallory argues against Leopold’s deeper meanings about how he portrays the natural world, for she acknowledges a significant issues(among many) underpinning his ideas about sport hunting: dominance of men over the “other,” (which can be understood as both woman and the non-human animal) and his contradictory statements within his ecological narrative.

One passage in particular that grabbed my attention was when Mallory cited Marti Kheel(1990) : …animals have become objects in the eyes of these men…Leopold openly expresses this urge to reduce animals to object status. (78) Mallory notes that this passage is in “de Beauvoirian tones,” and I instantly knew who she was talking about: Simone de Beauvoir, a well-known French feminist  who wrote the famous work “The Second Sex“(a brief Youtube video introduction to “The Second Sex” can be accessed below). I am taking Feminist Philosophy this semester, and I read “The Second Sex” earlier this month; the parallels between de Beauvoir’s work and Mallory’s work is very prominent. In the Youtube video linked below the narrator highlights de Beauvoir’s argument about how women have been “inferior and secondary to men” to keep men dominate. (0:44-0:51) Later on in the video, the narrator explains how de Beauvoir asserts that women are like dolls (1:20), like objects.

So it is very interesting that human sexual/social nature seemingly plays a part in Leopold’s ecological narrative. According to Leopold, the animal is treated as an object of desire to hunt, not a sentient being that requires moral consideration. This is also true in cases where the woman is seen as a desired object to “hunt” by men throughout history; she is considered a doll/object that does not recieve much in the way of moral consideration either. Mallory continues on to explain Kheel’s passage, asserting that, “…”animal” is defined as a negation of “human” in the same sense that “woman” is defined as the negation of “man.” “(78) These dualities share common “characteristics” with one another(as natural beings), where the man places limitations on the animal and woman, yet he separates himself from the concept that he is also a natural being by hunting. It is through hunting, argues Mallory, that man “confirms his existence [as] the independent male self.”(78)

I think that animals and women do have similarities when judged by (some) men when each are being pursued. While I think that these similarities were more apparent when de Beauvoir wrote “The Second Sex” in 1949, it is still evident that women are treated as objects just like animals are, especially how woman are like dolls in the beauty industry. For animals, I can understand the “game” of sport hunting where glory and domination are attained(as I have/never will hunt) but it cannot be reasonably justified in my eyes since sport hunting is creating maleficence and not beneficence to the environment that is not necessary for the man or the animal.

Another interesting(and obvious) idea surrounding Leopold’s ecological narrative is that he justifies hunting while claiming to be an environmental figure. Mallory explains Leopold’s “act of domination”(75) is contradictory to what he stands for; sport hunting is exploitative of the natural world. Despite Mallory’s claim that he “made an invaluable contribution to environmental disourse,” (59) Leopold does not seem to grasp the basic claim foundational to environmental ethics, which is non-anthropocentric. Leopold is anthropocentric by dominating and exploiting animals by sport hunting, all to satisfy himself alone.

I definitely think it is necessary to be critical of one’s stance in academia, for it is best to understand completely what he/she is trying to convey to their readers. In Mallory’s case, she unearths many issues with Leopold’s sport hunting beliefs that run contrary to his other beliefs about the environment, which is essential to highlight what he as an author is really trying to argue for.

Lastly, Mallory notes how Thomas Hobbes’ narrative makes an appearance in Leopold’s “atavism argument[about how]…all beings are fundamentally in conflict with one another…[where] men possess an instinctive zest for physical combat,”(73-74)  Hobbes argues that:

So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men’s persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles…(2) (Link below)

From these passages, Hobbes addresses why it is in the nature of man to be in  conflict with others, and it seems that self-interest is the main reason to do so. So Leopold was justifying sport hunting by arguing that all beings are in conflict with one another, and that it is instinctual for men to hunt. But it just seems that men hunt for themselves alone and whatever benefits come from that; no moral considerations are provided to the animals that are hunted for sport.

I also agree with Mallory’s assertion that this notion of  “limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence”(74) is more masculine perspective on the natural world than the more feminine “organisms  cooperating  and symbiotically interacting.”(74) If this more feminine persepctive was to be used on viewing the environment, I believe that sport hunting would at least not be popularized, or even legal. I think that we, as a society, need to understand the world and our impact upon it through our conceptions of what the environment is so we can coexist in way that does not cause unnecessary harm to sentient beings for personal gain. So should the natural world not be seen through this lens instead? Since sport hunting is still allowed(and popularized) to this day, should it be the case that sport hunting be illegal?

 

By: Melissa

Chaone Mallory’s “Acts of Objectification and the Repudiation of Dominance: Leopold, Ecofeminism, and the Ecological Narrative”(http://www.jstor.org/stable/40339013)

Link for Hobbes: (http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ362/hallam/Readings/LeviathanXiiiXv.pdf)

This week in PHIL 355 we are continuing our discussion on non-anthropocentric critiques. One reading we are looking at is Paul W. Taylor’s The Ethics of Respect for Nature.

In this reading, Taylor writes on biocentrism — a life centred approach to environmental ethics that essentially argues that all life (not just human life) should be protected even if it has no benefit to humans (Attfield, 1). This biocentric approach Taylor presents sharply contrasts the anthropocentric view where only human life is valued and there is no obligation to protect the good of nonhuman living things, like plants and animals (198). Taylor, a true advocate for biocentrism argues that if we reject anthropocentrism and adopt a biocentric moral theory, we acknowledge that we are morally bound to protect nonhuman living things and promote their good for their sake because like us, they are members of Earth’s integrated community and possess inherent worth (198).

In his paper, Taylor lays out three interrelated structures needed for a strong foundation in a biocentric ethical theory: a “respect for nature, a belief system that constitutes a way of conceiving of the natural world and our place in it, and a system of moral rules and standards for guiding our treatment of those ecosystems and life communities…” (197).

The first structure is respect for nature, which essentially is agreeing to believe that living nonhuman things have intrinsic worth, just as humans do (Taylor, 202). The second structure is the belief system that underlies respect for nature, which Taylor calls “the biocentric outlook on nature” (205).

The first component being that humans are members of Earth’s community of life and have the same membership as nonhumans (Taylor, 206). What Taylor is saying here is that humans and nonhumans live together on Earth and we are all affected by processes fundamental to life (natural selection, genetics etc.) (207). What is interesting is that Taylor brings moral standing into his argument. He claims that even though humans are “new arrivals” on an Earth that was flourishing with life long before we arrived, we still tend to look down on nonhumans as inferior despite going through the same evolutionary processes necessary to our survival (207).

The third component of the biocentric outlook on life is that every organism on Earth is a teleological centre of life that pursues good in ways that are uniquely their own and for their own wellbeing (Taylor, 210). Finally, the fourth component is the denial of human superiority (Taylor, 211).This component argues that despite possessing certain capabilities that nonhumans do not, we should not consider ourselves superior over them. Taylor uses the example of a cheetah’s speed; despite a cheetah being much faster than humans, we regard it as inferior even though we do not possess the same capabilities it has because we deem them as not as valuable to us (211). This claim of superiority from a human point of view is problematic because the “good of humans is taken as the standard of judgement” and we disregard that nonhumans have a good of their own as well (Taylor, 213).

By adopting this belief system, we begin to notice the flaws in an anthropocentric system and recognize that this species egalitarian philosophy proposed by Taylor is a way to see nonhumans as beings with inherent value striving to reach their own good. I think that Taylor’s use of ecology and scientific evidence was a good way in solidifying his argument, especially in regards to the first component of the biocentric outlook. In addition, I think it is important that Taylor mentioned nonhumans should not have moral rights, but should have legal rights (218). I think that by assigning legal rights to plants and animals, humans are better able to recognize their value, and could potentially be more mindful when interacting with them.

– Ashley

Works Cited

Paul W. Taylor. The Ethics of Respect for Nature. 1981.

Robin Attfield. Biocentrism Talk. Cardiff University.