It's my personal choice
To eat meat and animal products
This is quite a common response to veganism, usually from those who have a rough idea of what's inflicted on the animals and so 'respect' a vegan's choice to refrain from eating them. This view often goes hand-in-hand with 'I respect your choice to be vegan so you should respect my choice to eat meat'.
There are a couple of problems here:
The 'personal choice' statement is literally meaningless.
Aren't all actions we take a personal choice? If you make an individual decision to do something you have by definition made a personal choice. The fact that it is 'personal' though has no bearing whatsoever on whether or
not it is ethical.
Going on holiday? You made a personal choice.
Going to stop eating meat? You made a personal choice.
Want to eat meat every day? You made a personal choice.
Decided to punch someone in the face? You made a personal choice.
Decided you're going to rape someone? You made a personal choice.
On matters of morality, whether or not an action is a personal choice has no relation to whether it's right or wrong.
Because in reality…
No choice that (negatively) affects others can ever be considered 'personal'.
When you make a deliberate, conscious decision that hurts, kills or causes suffering to others it ceases to be personal only to you. With the eating of meat and other animal products resulting in the needless loss of the lives of others, how can such a choice ever be considered personal? As soon as you pay someone to take a life on your behalf both the person doing the killing and the animal being killed have clearly become involved in your choice.
We can see this clearly by putting ourselves in the position of the victim rather than looking at it from our privileged point of view. Imagine someone has you restrained and wishes to kill you. Would you respect their personal choice to do so? Would you respect those who failed to help you because they in turn respect your tormentors' 'personal choice' to inflict harm upon you? The answer of course is no, and because animals share the exact same desire to live as you or I do, we should offer them the very same consideration we would hope to be given ourselves.
There are a couple of problems here:
The 'personal choice' statement is literally meaningless.
Aren't all actions we take a personal choice? If you make an individual decision to do something you have by definition made a personal choice. The fact that it is 'personal' though has no bearing whatsoever on whether or
not it is ethical.
Going on holiday? You made a personal choice.
Going to stop eating meat? You made a personal choice.
Want to eat meat every day? You made a personal choice.
Decided to punch someone in the face? You made a personal choice.
Decided you're going to rape someone? You made a personal choice.
On matters of morality, whether or not an action is a personal choice has no relation to whether it's right or wrong.
Because in reality…
No choice that (negatively) affects others can ever be considered 'personal'.
When you make a deliberate, conscious decision that hurts, kills or causes suffering to others it ceases to be personal only to you. With the eating of meat and other animal products resulting in the needless loss of the lives of others, how can such a choice ever be considered personal? As soon as you pay someone to take a life on your behalf both the person doing the killing and the animal being killed have clearly become involved in your choice.
We can see this clearly by putting ourselves in the position of the victim rather than looking at it from our privileged point of view. Imagine someone has you restrained and wishes to kill you. Would you respect their personal choice to do so? Would you respect those who failed to help you because they in turn respect your tormentors' 'personal choice' to inflict harm upon you? The answer of course is no, and because animals share the exact same desire to live as you or I do, we should offer them the very same consideration we would hope to be given ourselves.
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This informative video from Mic. the Vegan also discusses the many hidden costs inflicted
upon society by animal agriculture with the author of Meatanomics, David Simon.
upon society by animal agriculture with the author of Meatanomics, David Simon.
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"Know that the same spark of life that is within you, is within all of
our animal friends, the desire to live is the same within all of us."
Rai Aren
our animal friends, the desire to live is the same within all of us."
Rai Aren
