Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
derived from free-roaming animals? (In terms of cost, such products can cost up to
two or three times more than ordinary products; in terms of accessibility, milk from
free-roaming cows is very hard to find.) Need they always prefer restaurants that use
such products no matter how inferior these may be to others? Can they purchase and
eat eggs and dairy products that do not come from free-roaming animals?
“Cooperation” with practices in this matter boils down to buying and eating. These
do not necessarily go together since one can purchase products for someone else to
eat, and consume products that someone else has bought. Begin with the buying part.
If one insists on buying the cheapest egg and dairy products, one is commissioning
someone else to produce in the most economically efficient ways, and this can mean
commissioning exploitation. Vegetarians are obligated to support products that present
moral progress even if these cost more.
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How about purchasing and eating products that are not derived from free-roaming
animals? I have, up to now, claimed that much of the force of vegetarianism in op-
position to veganism involves the capacity to influence production through selective
consumption. Does this mean that vegetarians can never purchase the products of
factory-farms? I think that it does not, and that vegetarians can fall short of ideal se-
lective consumption. The reason for this relates to the third condition above: taking
eggs or milk does not create suffering and loss. Participating here is accordingly cat-
egorically different from participating in acts that do involve a harm being done. Ve-
getarians are obligated to a policy of conscious and selective purchasing, and to give
moral production practices a chance even if these are more expensive. But the obliga-
tion to seek ways to minimize and eliminate exploitation does not extend to a com-
plete ban.
Buying products that are not derived from free-range animals if alternatives are im-
cusable” since consuming products that rely on exploitative practice (and that ulti-
mately form a part of the flesh industry too by slaughtering the animals that produce
the eggs and the milk) can never be unproblematic. Nor is it morally plain-sailing to
purchase products derived from free-roaming animals (vegans do have a substantial
moral point). But all this means no more than that the obligation to avoid the
products of factory-farms is substantial. “Excusable” is a term that will be suspicious
only to those who assume that protest is of an all-or-nothing nature (if one opposes
some actions done by the army of one's country, one ought to refuse to be drafted; if
one opposes some actions taken by one's government, one ought to morally evade
paying taxes, etc.). Why should we suppose that protest has this all-or-nothing charac-
ter?
