Should Parents Teach Their Children not to Consume Meat?

August 01, 2024 06:00

I’m planning on tentatively starting a series that looks at a variety of practical ethics puzzles, and the different considerations at play. The following serves as an inaugural piece.

Should parents teach their children not to consume meat?

On surface, the argument seems relatively straightforward – though we must take a quick detour in considering a premise that potentially underpins this view. In purchasing and buying meat, we are actively reifying and contributing towards a raft of harms – climate change (arising from the emission of greenhouse gases by grazing livestock raised for human consumption), the net harm inflicted upon animals with their lives abruptly cut short, as well as the health (public and personal) detriments that are posed to frequent animal consumers. Parents, as with all other human agents at large, possess the tentative duty to minimise harm, and maximise overall utility; even if one isn’t a maximal consequentialist, one can still endorse the claim that meat consumption runs against the minimal constraint of not inflicting mass suffering in exchange for marginal improvements to utility (i.e. the enjoyment that comes from consuming a Tomahawk steak).

The trouble with these claims, however, is that reality tends to be more complex. Firstly, in my opting to consume meat, I could well be contributing nominally and trivially to the numerical demand for animals (and their slaughtering); yet note the food that arrives on my plate – cooked and plated, done and dusted – comes from an animal that would be killed irrespective of whether I opt to order it. Perhaps the challenge has to do with future animals killed to “replenish” the stocks, but the moral liability there seemingly lies with the butcher at the slaughterhouse, as opposed to the consumer per se.

A plausible rejoinder could be the observation that I remain complicit in a collective enterprise that is – at its core – precipitating the suffering of animals. Granting that the (premature) killing of animals does in fact constitute the infliction of great suffering; granting further that the factory farms lamented by thinkers such as Peter Singer are, indeed, the sources of additional pain further to that – none of this seems to vindicate the assertion of complicity. Complicity applies in instances where the purportedly complicit agents share similar intentions in accomplishing shared objectives. A steak consumer does not possess the intention to kill the cow – indeed, she is likely to shudder at such a thought, unless she happens to be a well-qualified slaughterer; at most, she is ‘complicit’ in the food and beverage industry’s handling of processed meat – which seems to be a substantially less egregious charge. The delta – that is, the marginal impact – of non-consumption of animal also appears to be negligible. Suppose I opt to cease and desist from eating meat tomorrow onwards – this is unlikely to change at all the number of cows ordered and lined up for slaughter.

Perhaps a better answer to this all concerns the mental state argument: it is wrong for one to derive enjoyment and pleasure – and any vestige of mental satisfaction – from the products and outcomes of injustices. It would be inappropriate, if not downright wrong, for me to celebrate the victories of a doping athlete. It would also be improper to champion and commemorate mass killings that have led to net enrichment on my part. As such, we should oppose animal consumption on grounds that it reflects improper and poorly formed mental states.

This argument does seem to hold better under scrutiny. Yet we must thus return to the original question – should parents thereby instruct their children not to eat meat? Such teachings, as highlighted by several anti-paternalists, appear to contravene parents’ fundamental duties to respect their children’s autonomy over morally significant choices, but also to not forcefully induce their children into particular worldviews. The critic could reply to this by positing that we already permit – legally and morally – parents to enroll their children in their own faiths, religions, and moral values; that given the inevitability of external influences over their beliefs, we may as well let parents have the primary say in determining what their children subscribe to, over alternative sources of belief.

Yet such a response unduly conflates religious beliefs and systems, with moral-normative beliefs concerning what is just. Suppose here that the parents in question are atheist, and that their primary motivations for discouraging meat consumption has to do with the utilitarian argument advanced above. Is it reasonable and just for them to impose their views on unsuspecting children who are oft deferential – due to power asymmetries and social norms – to and thus hugely dependent upon their parents?

I would suggest that the difference between the prescription against meat consumption and the calling for children to adopt the same religious faiths could be slimmer than thought. For many of the most devout and sincere vegetarians, their commitments to not killing animals (and avoiding the harm and pain associated with such) are equally strong as, if not stronger than, their religious or non-religious yet personally significant beliefs. If we grant that parents have a right to foster cohesive families based on shared, integral values, we should also grant them the right to teach their kids what is – and isn’t – edible, in a normatively ideal setting.

One may disagree with my view: I look forward to hearing your objections.

Assistant Professor, HKU