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“It does not, however, seem morally objectionable to eat an animal that has dies of natural causes” says philosopher Jeff McMahan* and, of course, he’s right, even if the lunatic fringe of the vegan movement thinks he’s wrong. There can be no moral objection against eating the body of one who has died of natural causes, and it’s either sentimentalism or some weird spiritualism to think there could be.
*In Eating animals the nice way, an article that argues against “benign carnivorism”.
6 Comments
I must be a part of the ‘lunatic fringe’ because I find it morally objectionable to eat the flesh of a dead animal.
I cannot give you a well written or sophisticated reason why but to me it is abhorrent & I would suggest that someone that did such a thing can lose the title of vegan.
I suppose that the title vegan is important to some people, although I have little use for it myself.
1) What counts as a natural cause?
– Bacterial infection on a CAFO?
– Sustenance hunting/fishing?
-Internal bleeding from a car collision?
Why does the label “natural” make an act unacceptable?
2) Would there be anything morally objectionable about eating humans who died of a natural cause? If so, why is it objectionable to eat humans but not all other animals?
3) Does painting animal activists/vegetarians as “sentimental” and “lunatics” not perpetuate the very discourse that has trivialized AR/vegetarian activists for over a century (when reason is associated with masculine objectivity)?
Hi Adam,
Animals die naturally, for all sorts of reasons, such as old age and (I assume) heart attacks and such. That’s what I mean by ‘natural cause’. The reason the label “natural” matters is because the wrongful harm involved in the eating of an animal is in the unjust killing of an animal. Should a free-living deer die spontaneously of natural causes after a life free from human oppression, then there would be no wrongful harm committed against that deer were a person to eat the dead body. There are others reasons that a person could choose not to eat a dead body, for instance in order to honor the wishes of the animal’s survivors or out of concern for health and safety, or in deference to social norms. There have been human societies, some recent, in which to honor their dead the survivors ate the dead bodies. Of course, we now consume the dead bodies of people by transplanting their organs into others. It hardly seems morally significant that in some cases the consumption involves surgery rather than sauteing. I am not terribly concerned with whether calling some people part of the “lunatic fringe” perpetuates some discourse or another. I am also not concerned with whether one takes exception to having their views called “sentimentalist”. There’s value in the use of evocative language.
Thanks for your comments.
Hi Tim,
I need some Clarity are you are trying to explore the limits of veganisim?
When you say “It hardly seems morally significant that in some cases the consumption involves surgery rather than sauteing.”
I think about how a humans organs will only be used with the consent of the donor,given before death or by consent of guardians in the case of children.Non humans do not give such consent. They also do not give consent to their habitat destruction, culling, hunting or trapping, yet it happens.I am not a deer but when I consider the constant oppression deers live under due to the human practices I have just mentioned I can say they are unjust. I wonder if I was a deer would I appreciate seeing a human eat a member of my community or species regardless of how they have died. I guess it may keep me fearful and distressed at humans. What do you think?
When you talk about someone eating the body of an animal they have found I would prefer to say that they can not explain the cause of death, rather than call it death from “natural “causes. As it would probably take a postmortem to determine the actual cause of death,is this suggested as a prerequisite of consuming the body? Assuming the death of any animal has been natural leaves a gap in any attempt at a moral argument for eating them which would allow animals to be eating virtually anytime as long as we have no conclusive evidence of cause of death. Isn’t this whats happening right now with billions of animals?, when people do not look for or at the facts of eating animals. Finding such a body seems unlikely then,an animal that drops dead should quickly become devoured by other scavenging non humans. Considering the constant violent oppression all non humans are suffering I feel there is a strong moral case for leaving the corpse for these scavenging non humans to cope with within their habitat thus respecting their actions and food sources.
Hello Pears,
It is not universally the case that human organs are harvested for transplant only when consent has been previously obtained. There are jurisdictions wherein the default assumption is that, in the absence of previously stated objections, dead human bodies ought to and will be used for organ harvesting.
I believe that deers and most other animals think very little, if at all, about the members of their own (or other) species who have died. To my knowledge, most other animals haven’t any conception of other minds nor of death.
When I talk about natural causes, I mean what we all typically mean by the term – death from naturally occurring phenomena that hasn’t been brought about by another through the deliberate infliction of harm. So, for example, were a naturally occurring rock slide to kill a mountain goat, the mountain goat would have died of natural causes. I suppose that were one to find a dead deer in the forest, one would have to perform an autopsy on the body to determine for sure what was the cause of death, but certainly there are bound to be cases (as in the case of a rock slide just mentioned) wherein it would be easily known that death was not the result of malfeasance. Obviously, if one accepts that causing harm to and committing wrongs against other animals is a necessary effect of the commercial industrialized food production system, then one will also accept that the deaths caused in such a system are not at all natural and so one would have ample reason to avoid consuming the dead bodies (and the parts and derivatives thereof) that are the products of such a system.
Thank you for your comment.
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