To Eat or Not to Eat?

The scenario goes like this: a pig, after undergoing genetic modification, can talk! It says to Max Berger, a man who has been a vegetarian for forty years, “Come on, eat me!” When it’s led to the slaughterhouse, it goes full of anticipation, hoping to be eaten as soon as possible. So, as a vegetarian, should Max eat it or not — that is the question.

There are basically two reasons vegetarians abstain from meat year-round. The first is the belief that eating meat is bad for the body — understandable enough, since it’s simply a matter of personal preference. The second is the belief that humans have no right to hold power of life and death over animals; animals should have their own welfare. Of course, as the book points out, people don’t seem to think about this when they’re swatting mosquitoes…

That second point is exactly what I don’t understand. Humans are always “instinctively” doing a great deal of thinking on behalf of others. As it happens, I recently read I Am Not a Murderer, in which a critically ill patient named Vincent is fully conscious but unable to end his own life — a situation just as awkward, just as painful, as that of the pig standing before vegetarians at the dinner table, wanting to be eaten. How foolish it is that humanity so widely interferes with euthanasia!

Can we ever truly grasp what another being is thinking, and act correctly on that basis? The answer to this question is the same as the answer to “as a dog, you can never explain why cats prefer independence from humans.” Because you are always, inescapably, yourself.