Comic Strips

I think in general culture is a pretty poor way to determine what behaviours are morally acceptable. Moral progress is often a matter of overcoming the moral defects of our cultural heritage.

For example the idea that women should be subordinate to men is/was very deeply engrained in Western culture for a very, very long time. But that’s not an argument against gender equality. It is, instead, an argument for improving our culture. So anyone who said “hey, we can’t have gender equality because it goes against our cultural heritage” would be missing the mark. Sure, it might go against our cultural heritage, but so what? We must change our culture to match morality, not ignore morality to preserve our culture.

And its not just our culture that falls into this trap, other cultures can be deeply flawed too. For example, in some cultures female genital mutilation and child marriage are the norm. Does that mean these behaviours are okay, simply because they are culturally accepted? Clearly not. Human rights are universal. If these behaviours were human rights violations in, say, Denmark, then they do not cease to be human rights violations just because they are taking place in a different country with different cultural attitudes.

Now regarding our attitudes to animals, it is true that there is a lot of cultural variation in which animals are acceptable to eat. In India, eating a cow would be largely be seen as disgusting and disrespectful. In Canada, for example, eating a dog would be an outrage, but in some Asian nations this is not the case.

Is this because the value of the individual animals lives shifts from culture to culture? Or is it because the pain these animals experience differs from country to country (does getting your throat slit hurt less for dogs in South Korea than dogs in Canada)? The answers to these questions are no and no. The only differences going on here is culture, and nothing more. These different cultural attitudes do not track any relevant moral differences; they are merely accidents of history.

It is no different than how different regions tend to be racist towards different groups. For example, in the US (to oversimplify a bit) the primary target of racism has been Black people, whereas in China the primary target of racism has the Uyghurs. Is this because racism against Black people is okay in the US (but not in China) and conversely because racism against the Uyghurs is okay in China (but not the US)? No, it’s not. The Americans primarily focus their racism against one group due to circumstances of history, and the Chinese primarily focus their racism against another group due to the circumstances of their history. But that’s all that’s going on. There are no relevant moral differences here, just differences in history and culture. Because in all circumstances, and in all countries, racism directed at any one of any group is morally indefensible.

It’s similar with animals. Causing significant unnecessary suffering to a being who does not want to suffer is morally indefensible. It does not matter who the being that suffers is. It does not matter if that being is a dog, cat, pig, chicken or human. If that being does not want to suffer, and there is no strong overriding reason as to why they ought suffer, then we have no morally defensible reason for causing them to suffer. Culture does not change that.

So, since farming and slaughtering animals with industrial efficiency causes animals significant suffering, the compassionate thing to do is to simply not partake in that system. And in order to not participate in this system one must have a vegan diet.

If you’re interested in this line of reasoning then I recommend checking out the paper All Animals Are Equal by Peter Singer. It gets into the ethics behind veganism with much more detail and clarity than I can provide here.

Thank you for your question, I hope you found this response helpful.

I was literally just answering your question