We are increasingly able to rethink our attitudes towards consumption and food. For various reasons, a movement against the consumption of animals and the use of animal products has formed in the last few decades, which is now an everyday occurrence.

Historical development

Veganism and vegetarianism are by no means foreign to us – their ways of life have become established. How do we explain our current animal ethics and why has it always been acceptable to eat meat? In this article I am not presenting a detailed argument against or for meat consumption or the use of animal products. Instead, it is an introduction to stimulating views that have fundamentally determined animal ethics in specific cultures.

Based on historical tradition and through the inheritance of ways of life, we find ourselves in a culture that regards meat consumption as normal.

In the history of Europe, since the estimated development of domesticated livestock husbandry around 9,000 years ago, there has not been a longer and geographically extended time window in which the conscious renunciation of animals for food was maintained – with one notable exception: the school of the Pythagoreans from the ancient greek age.

This school was a religious-philosophical and also political supporters from what is now southern Italy in the early 6th century BC, which required strict adherence to consumption rules from its followers, which of course also included the non-consumption of animals. In addition, its founder, Pythagoras of Samos, should already be known to every reader from math lessons.

The motivation for this form of nutrition came from the idea of ​​a transmigration of souls, a concept that was probably transferred to the ideas and guiding principles of Pythagoras through the influence of Indian traditions – including above all the teaching of the birth cycle samsara.

How and why the doctrine of the soul affects human nutrition will be seen later in the section on Buddhist ethics with regard to the original Hindu position.

In any case, the teaching of the Pythagorean school, given its strict vegetarian way of life, can be regarded as fundamental for the widespread spread of the vegetarian way of life. It was only because of the modern vegetarian movement that flourished a few decades ago that such an attitude could take a stand in a larger social context.

Example: increase in vegetarianism

Recent surveys confirm a rapidly growing proportion of vegetarians and vegans as well as steadily increasing sales of meat-free and animal-free products. In 2016, 9% of all Germans are said to have consciously switched to a vegetarian or vegan diet. Currently (2018) the number has grown to over 10% [G. Mensink et al. (RKI) 2016 and ProVeg eV (2019): Vegan Trend: Facts and Figures on the Veggie Market]

In fact, in the period between the small beginnings of vegetarianism in Europe by the first Pythagoreans and the modern development towards a meat-free and animal-free diet in general, nothing in fact has happened for animal-ethical standpoints.

We have to ask ourselves why the brutal handling of animals for more than 2000 years has been a harmless and therefore always a matter that has received little attention. We’ll start with that.

Basics of our meat society

To be able to answer this question, we have to consider several relationships in our society. In the following I would like to switch from the historical situation to the decisive influencing factors of today’s animal ethical conditions, which undoubtedly play a serious role within the topic of vegetarian and vegan nutrition.

In the first place we should note which obvious ethical problems we can observe in our society through the systematic use and exploitation of animals:

• Cruelty and torture
• Production designed for profit
• Mass breeding and mass consumption
• Diseases and hygiene
• Carnic addiction and glossing over

If we think back to a time before industrialization, that is, a time when less demanding requirements for nutrition were common in the first place, then it will become clear to us that the relationship to meat and animal husbandry must have been completely different from today , especially because the animals were raised and slaughtered in front of their own eyes or even by their own hands.

In today’s society in particular, we have a number of factors that favor meat consumption, which have also been strengthened to a greater or lesser extent in the last hundred years by industrialization, which continues to this day, increasing prosperity and many technical achievements.

In other words: we have certain basic convictions and have created social framework conditions for meat consumption, which manifest themselves mainly in four forms: anthropocentrism, habit, distancing and belittling.

1. Anthropocentric worldview

The term anthropocentric is derived from the Greek word ἄνθρωπος (ánthropos) for man and the Latin word centrum for center. Starting from this etymological root, people and their needs are placed at the center of everything that happens.

In the European, that is, Christian area, this view is strongly interwoven with the structures of faith. We can easily read human privilege from the Bible in Genesis 1: 27-28:

God created man in his image; he created him in the image of God … Be fruitful and multiply, populate the earth and  subjugate it and rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky and over all animals that move on the land.

The crown is obviously placed on him through the mandate to rule that man receives from God as his image and the last work of creation: man stands in the center of the world. It is precisely from this ancient attitude, which has persisted into modern times, that the famous sentence follows: ›Man is the measure of all things‹.

Interestingly, the following section reads: Then God said: I hereby give you all the plants on the earth that bear seeds, as well as all trees with seed-bearing fruits. They should serve you as food. On the one hand, we are created according to biblical ideas to rule over the world and animals, on the other hand, a vegan diet is directly established.

To pick out individual sentences from the Bible and derive standard normative examples from them would of course be a mistake, but it should be said here that the Scientific Advisory Board for Environmental Issues of the EKD has expressed itself in a much more extensive manner with regard to the relationship between humans and animals and opposes it in a discussion contribution has expressed the supposed right to kill and eat animals [1]. Whether conclusions will be drawn from this is another story.

Influence of the biblical image of man

The anthropocentric view of the world was also reinforced by the grave influence of many modern, i.e. above all rationalist, views from the philosophy of the Enlightenment, which were probably never really able to move away from this biblical view. In particular, such views, which were largely established by René Descartes and Immanuel Kant, opened the gap between humans and animals in an even more extreme way.

2. Habit

We live within fixed behavior patterns, most of which we did not choose ourselves, but which we inherited from tradition. For example, a young child cannot decide whether or not to eat meat and must now be left to the decision of the parents. In practically all cases, one is raised to be a meat eater and does not reconsider this habit in later years.

3. Distancing

The processes of meat production and cruel factory farming do not take place behind high walls for nothing. The general public has learned of the appalling conditions in animal breeding solely through illegal video recordings. The distancing from unpleasant processes serves the naive principle: ›Out of sight, out of mind.‹

Other examples such as nuclear repositories, landfills and incineration plants are also sealed off and hidden in order not to bring the dreaming average consumer into contact with the true and usually very frightening reality. Because of our repression, it seems as if we all know that we are doing something wrong with our behavior, but we still do not take responsibility.

4. Downplaying

If people were confronted with slaughtering an animal with their own hands, the entire attitude towards meat consumption would certainly be different. Nowadays there is not only a distancing from the cruel processes of production, but also a general alienation from the connection between the living animal and the concrete animal product. Or does a laminated sausage remind you of a dead animal?

Dozens of other artificially processed and modified foods contain meat, but through skillful manipulation achieve the effect that it appears completely harmless to the consumer to eat this product. The connection between food and killing is completely played down and blurred.

Animals and meat consumption from a philosophical point of view

Philosophy primarily asks about the relationship between humans and animals. In addition, it must clarify in this context what one should understand by the term humans and animals. One of the first great advocates of animal rights was the British reformer Henry Stephens Salt (1851-1939), who answered the question ›Do animals have rights?‹ With the answer ›Undoubtedly, if humans have them.‹.

In his manifesto Animal Rights Considered in Relation to Social Progress  , published in 1892, Salt formulates an animal rights position that he understands as an absolutely necessary step in the socio-political further development of humans or humanity.

However, the following points precede this by looking at animal ethics from several different perspectives. I do not want the following aspects to be understood as arguments for or against vegetarianism or veganism, but merely as considerations that have fundamentally determined animal ethics in specific cultures.

Buddhist ethics

First of all, I would like to insert the Hindu position briefly. The most central concept in Hinduism is the relationship between Atman, the eternal essence of the mind or soul and Brahman, the eternal source of everything or the so-called world soul. The ultimate goal is to realize that Atman is Brahman:

This is why the famous formula in the Upanishads is: tat tvam asi – ›› that you ‹‹. [2]

In Hinduism it is therefore assumed that there is no difference between the soul of a person and the soul of any animal. The injustice to hunt, kill and eat animals is directly derived from this belief. The fact that this was not implemented in reality, just like in Christianity, ie that in Vedic times the killing of animals and the consumption of meat were common, is proven by various important scriptures.

Again the contrast between the authority of sacred texts and their implementation is evident. Buddhist ethics, on the other hand, is based much more on the principle of the inviolability of life (ahiṃsā). All commandments and virtues, such as charity, are in direct contact with this very strongly emphasized cornerstone of Buddhism.

In most Buddhist traditions, vegetarianism is not an obligation and even monks and nuns are allowed to eat meat if they can assume that the animal was not killed by their hands and for their purposes. In Jainism, by the way, this principle of the sanctity of life is taken to extremes by even accidentally killing a beetle as an act.

Although Buddhism shares the traditional Indian (Indo-European) view of the sanctity of life, in general the killing of life is only considered morally reprehensible if it is done intentionally or out of negligence. [3]

Descartes: Automata theory

In his meditations [4] Descartes cites a ‘proof’ of the existence of God, which at the same time proves to him that the body and the mind must exist separately. He explained the strong connection and interaction between body and mind, which one can still obviously recognize, using the model of two completely synchronized clocks – the great philosopher Gottfried Leibniz later adopted this theory of parallelism.

How Descartes got there is not so important to us. It is important to conclude that humans must be conscious, while animals are actually nothing more than automatons, i.e. painless and insensitive machines without a soul. This so-called Cartesian dualism, which separates the rational person from the rest of the world, is represented to this day.

Peter Singer is not wrong when he says that for Descartes the complaint of an animal is “nothing more than the squeaking of a badly oiled wheel”. [5]

Kant: Ethical Rationalism

The good Immanuel Kant was probably the greatest anthropocentric thinker par excellence. He also relates the topic of animal welfare to a purpose for humans by saying:

With regard to the living, although irrational part of creatures, the duty to abstain from violent and at the same time cruel treatment of animals is far more intimately opposed to the duty of man towards himself, because it dulls compassion for their suffering in man and thus one of morality, in relation to other people, the very natural disposition is weakened and gradually wiped out; [6]

What counts is the principle that ethics can only relate to people because only they have rationality. In other words, because man is able to recognize the laws of nature and is also able to gain power over them, he should only use them for his purposes.

Schopenhauer: Ethics of compassion

In his award  paper on the basis of morality , Schopenhauer takes an extremely critical position towards Kant’s rationalist position. Kant derives the motives for moral action from reason, which is not acceptable to Schopenhauer. For him there is no empirical evidence, which he recognizes in the affect of pity.

Ultimately, compassion can give rise to a principle of justice that includes both animals and humans. With this approach, Schopenhauer expands the responsibility of the human being by a very large part, but also does not completely break away from anthropocentrism, because compassion is mainly to be understood only as an affect of the human being.

Bentham’s principle of equality

Jeremy Bentham reached the milestone in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)  and I don’t have to say a lot about this. As a representative of utilitarianism, Bentham has fundamentally influenced all animal ethics to the present day, with a good example :

The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is not a reason to give a human being helplessly to the whim of a tormentor. Perhaps one day it will be recognized that the number of legs, the hairiness of the skin or the end of the sacrum are just as little reasons to leave a sentient being to this fate. What else was the line that could not be crossed? Is it the faculty of the mind or perhaps the faculty of speech? However, a fully grown horse or dog is incomparably more intelligent and communicative than a day or week old baby … But even if it were different, what would that matter? The question is not: can you think? Can you speak But: can they suffer? [