What Does Robert Scruton Mean When He Says We Should Eat Our Friends?

Many people are fine with eating hunted animals, but are not okay with people hunting animals. There have been many debates on which situations of hunting are ethical or not. In the story, “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, it talks about a man named General Zaroff who thinks it is okay to hunt animals and humans. He keeps his humans as prisoners but still takes care of them until they are ready to be hunted. Despite the fact that he feeds and shelters his humans, General Zaroff is uncivilized because he thinks that it is fair to kill other humans for his own

People tend to have various eating habits, but why do people consider eating dogs different from eating other animal meats? An American novelist Jonathan Safran Foer in his article called “Let Them Eat Dogs” argues that people should eat dog meat if they eat pigs, cows, and chickens as they have same capacities, they are all good companions and eating dogs is not taboo everywhere. Even though the way he defends this point is quite reasonable, in this essay I will give reasons why this might not always be the case. This paper will focus on a cultural taboo aspect of Foer’s argument which states that people should eat dogs because eating dogs is not taboo everywhere and it does not harm people in any way. However, people do not necessarily have to eat dog meat since based on our cultural practices, eating dogs is not the same as eating other animal, even though Foer argues that.

Humans do not eat other human beings because that would break down our organized society. We stay together, just as other species would, and breed. Morals and ethics are ideas that humans created cognitively. If one considered all animals to be just animals regardless of their intelligence, then the concept of morals and ethics would not exist. Despite the absurdity of meat eating ethics, there are other important reasons for meat in our diet.

A man should never go through an animal for its nutrients, when that animal receive all of its nutrients from plants. One man such, author Wendell Berry, wrote " The Pleasures of Eating," published in 2017, and he argues that every individual should be educated in what happens to their food before it becomes food. Many people are oblivious to what harmful things animals are put through in order to one day become our meal. Berry's intended audience is every single human being who eats meat, and even those who do not. I know this because Berry mentions the importance of individuals understanding where their meat comes from and why they should not let animals be treated this way. Berry assumes that individuals would not like to be treated that way, so why should animals be treated this way. Berry's purpose in this piece is to inform all humans of what inhumane things are done to animals in order to provide as one of our temporary fills. Berry's writing is somewhat credible and valuable because he is currently a farmer and currently a writer, he gives personal viewpoints and few examples, and he provides emotional statements about animal cruelty.

“Eating Animals” is written by Jonathan Safran Foer. This book was published on November 2, 2009. Jonathan Safran Foer is an American writer who is known for his novel, “Everything Is Illuminated”. In this book, Jonathan believes that those who eat meat are involved in the most horrifying crimes committed against animals. Foer Cleary admires his grandmother, who believes that you can never have too much food. Throughout the book, Foer also describes his grandmother’s favorite dish, chicken with carrots, even though he is a vegetarian. Foer cannot eat something that seems to cause him some distress. Throughout the book, Foer presents the conflict between cultural traditions involving meat traditions he wishes to share and his views as a vegetarian himself. Anyone who is a meat eater or even an animal lover, this is a must read book. This book is written with clarity, force and passion that will lead anyone to think carefully about eating animals and where it comes from.

In Eating Animals, Jonathan Foer, the author , positions different anecdotes throughout his discussion. As a child, Foer is told a narrative from his grandmother about the hardships she experiences during the war. While sharing her experiences, Foer’s grandmother demonstrates how one’s ethical choices affect what they will consume. This narrative in the chapter, “Storytelling” is parallel to the narrative in the chapter, “Slices of Paradise/Pieces of Shit” since they both involve people who refuse food due to their ethics. In the second narrative Foer, as an adult, get to experience the horrors of a slaughterhouse through the tour he’s given by Mario- worker in one of the better slaughterhouses. At the end of this tour Mario offers Foer a slice of pork, however, he refuses to eat the food because he’s ‘kosher’. Foer uses this excuse because his grandmother’s refusal to eat pork taught him that what you eat can involve ethical choices. Ethical values develop through narratives shared from person to person.

According to Scruton, “Eating animals has become a test case for moral theory in Western societies,” and he believes that a moral life is set on three pillars: virtue, duty, value piety. Foer uses fishes and dogs, for example, in Eating Animals: people slam gaffs into fish, but no one in their right mind would do such a thing to a dog. Foer also mentions that fish are out there in the water doing what fish do, and dogs are with us. Dogs are our companions, and with that, we care about the things that are near and dear to us. In, “Consider the Lobster,” Wallace asks, “Is it all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure?” Is it a personal choice to do so? PETA, of course, says no. Dick from the Maine Lobster Festival (MLF) argues that lobsters do not have the part of the brain that receives pain, which is a false statement anyhow. Goodrich (1969) says that a human’s life is worth so much more than an animal’s life. No matter how many animals there are, one human life is worth more.

Imagine sitting around eating you’re sitting in a restaurant eating your burger and you see a cow in the back. You might think was the cow that I’m eating mistreated? Or did they have a good quality life before they became my meal. This is why many decide to not eat meat at all because they fear what happened to that animal before it became their meal. Author Gary Steiner is an American moral philosopher, and Professor of Philosophy at Bucknell University. He explained this best in his paper Animal, Vegetable, and Miserable, along with other pieces of work that focused on animal rights.

Jonathan Safran, a vegetarian, states that, in his Juvenalian article “A Case for Eating Dog” the human race should be condemned for eating an animal’s meat, for it is a moral taboo to do so. Safran argues that eating any animal, be it a cow, or a dog, is something to take ignominy in. The author, Jonathan Safran, uses the satirical device of travesty to create a serious, firm atmosphere, which conveys that eating animals is a shameful practice. Safran argues that while, yes, a large number of dogs-and other animals for that matter- are wasted every year, it doesn’t give us permission to eat animals every bit as smart as animals we do eat. It is stated that “pigs are just as smart as dogs”, but we still eat them (Safran PPG 5).

Animals are bread forcibly, then nourished with specific intent of managing fat content, meat flavor, and healthiness, each of which discounts the Utilitarian claim that nature makes our carnivorous methods ethically permissible. Secondly, and perhaps more fundamentally, such a claim is in direct contradiction to the Utilitarian tenet that each individual has equal value regardless of identity or stature. Because humans could be sufficiently nourished without the killing of animals, it cannot be argued that the consequence of causing death to an animal is equivalent or less substantial than that of feeding a man.

Within the battle of opposing opinions about living a carnivorous lifestyle, there’s the underlying battle of judgment in human nature. We, as humans, have the conscious ability to choose a moral right or wrong. According to Scruton, “it is the residue of religion in us all,” that determines what is moral right and wrong (A carnivore’s Credo 259). This causes the essay to become applicable to every area of life where some moral controversy is present. There is no black and white anymore. The argument is not about what Scruton calls eating versus feeding or whether it's virtuous or vicious. There is a definite gray area. This calls for people to reconsider every action before it is even made. There is no need to “abandon habits” when they can simply be “remoralized” (A Carnivore’s Credo 264). In this example of carnivore vs vegetarian, neither one is more correct than the other. There merely is now an open discussion about what is truly moral.

A Judeo-Christian interpretation from the Bible stated that “dominion over animals meant that any degree of exploitation was acceptable has changed for most people to mean that each person has responsibility for animal welfare (Aquinas T., 2006).”

Most humans tend to be in this trouble middle when it comes to their relationship with animals. They are concerned about the cruel ways animals are treated, but still contribute to it by eating animals, keeping them as pets or watching bullfights. They are aware of how unethical these actions are but continue to do it for their personal gain or enjoyment. Some also have complicated reasoning such as thinking it’s acceptable to eat certain types of animals and not others. Typically this type of reasoning varies depending on the region where one lives. For example, most people who live in the United States of America (U.S.A) think it is appalling to eat a dog while it is completely acceptable in places like China. Similarly, it is acceptable to eat beef in the U.S.A, but not in India due to their religious belief of the cow being sacred. These different cultures and religion have resulted in it being acceptable to eat certain animals in some places and unethical to do so in others. To avoid this troubled middle, all animals should be treated equally so that if it is unethical to eat one type of animal it should be unethical to eat all types of animals.

In “Animal, Vegetable, Miserable,” Gary Steiner argues against the eating, or using, of animals and animal products. Steiner is the author of multiple books on topics similar to this, and a dedicated vegan of fifteen years at the time of this article. The author begins with an allusion to the recent outcries for the humane treatment of animals being raised for food. However, he points out, no one seems to be concerned about the animals being slaughtered, merely that they were not abused beforehand. Steiner then goes on to explain the two main

Christopher McCandless, a young American who was found dead in summer of 1992 in wild land in Alaska, wrote in his diary about his moral struggle regarding killing a moose for survival. According to Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Chris had to abandon most of the meat since he lacked the knowledge of how to dismantle and preserve it (166-168). Not only did he have a moral dilemma to kill a moose, but also had a deep regret that a life he had taken was wasted because of his own fault. He then started recognizing what he ate as a precious gift from the nature and called it “Holy Food” (Krakauer 168). Exploring relationships between human beings and other animals arouses many difficult questions: Which animals are humans allowed to eat and