The conflict between morality and using animals for food has been a very long-term topic for discourse. And animal rights have also been a very influential subtopic in this discussion, due to the issue of cruelty and poor conditions in slaughterhouses. The following essay will go into further detail about this rather concerning conflict and whether it is possible to find a decent resolution or not.
The disagreement with the use of animals for food has been advocated by lecturers, such as James Wildman. He believes that people have been conditioned to believe that meat, fish and dairy products are healthy for humans (Wildman). During James’ lecture, “The Food Matrix”, he also discusses morality and the inhumane conditions of slaughterhouses. This is why the man recommends his audience to stop consuming such foods.
Wildman references how people react differently to berries and animals. He depicts an imaginary situation in which a strawberry is shown to an audience, and then cut in half. Later, James asks the guests to picture the same happening to a pig in front of their eyes, predicting that they would have been unsettled by it (Wildman). This is a flawed opinion, for there is a difference between using an animal for food and harming it in front of an audience for shock value. What Wildman depicted in his argument sounded more like the latter, which is certainly immoral.
However, I do agree with his concern regarding the inhumane conditions in slaughterhouses. Wildman mentions the tight cages hens are confined to, leading to them experiencing stress (Wildman). The lecturer also depicts “open cages”, but they are intentionally mislabeled, for such spaces are used to confine more animals in the same location. This depicts the dishonest nature of such locations being labeled as humane.
In conclusion, I find the conflict between morality and using animals for food quite nuanced and complicated. James Wildman has made some interesting points, but others were rather flawed. For example, the pig and strawberry argument is not entirely accurate, for the former sounded more like the depiction of an animal being harmed for shock value, which is undeniably immoral. This atrocious action cannot be compared to an animal being bred for food. However, it is important to mention that his concerns about slaughterhouses having inhumane conditions are valid. Nonetheless, I found this topic and the lecture rather interesting and worthy of further discussion.
Work Cited
“The Food Matrix – 101 Reasons to Go Vegan.” Youtube. Uploaded by TheAnimalHolocaust, 2012.