A Plea for the Animals: The Moral, Philosophical, and Evolutionary Imperative to Treat All Beings With Compassion

By Matthieu Ricard

I often get questioned about my veganism - why do I do it? The easy, non-combative answer I usually give is something along the lines of "well, a bit for the environment, but mostly I just don't feel like eating animals." People don't get too offended by this. This is in contrast to what I actually believe, that not only is factory farming horrible for the environment, but more importantly it inflicts immeasurable suffering on billions of animals annually. And even beyond that, that I believe killing an animal unnecessarily (that is, not for immediate survival but instead because you enjoy the taste of cow meat) is inherently wrong. People do get offended by this. This is something Ricard brings up often in A Plea for the Animals: why are meat-eaters so sensitive when it comes to their meat eating? How come it is taboo to discuss where your food comes from at the dinner table? What is the difference, really, between a cow and a dog? Why are vegans and vegetarians a laughing stock in popular media, portrayed as weird or crazy? Ricard would say, as would I, that this sensitivity is because most people already know that their consumption of meat is morally reprehensible. Ask a non-vegetarian in your social circle about factory farming and most would agree it's a horrible practice with horrible conditions for the animals, but of course they don't stop eating these animals. Show them a video of a baby cow or pig and they'll be overloaded with cuteness - just to go and eat a bacon cheeseburger later that day. This book implores the reader to investigate their beliefs and actions, to truly come to an understanding of what and why they do what they do. This process of questioning ones values has been discussed by philosophers throughout history,  including Marcuse, Descartes, Socrates... I could go on.  A Plea for the Animals is simply suggesting one do this about the consumption of animals (and animal products), coupled with relevant evidence to digest. 

The book begins with an appeal to ethos, inciting historical philosophers that argued for a vegan diet or for the sentience of animals. It's funny I mentioned Descartes earlier, as he argued animals were "simple machines, automata". Kant and Aquinas shared the belief that animals didn't have consciousness and are "no more than a means to an end." Others disagreed, of course. A response particularly to my liking is from Voltaire, on the dissection of a dog: 

"You discover in it all the same organs of feeling that are in you. Answer me, mechanist: did nature arrange all the apparatus of sensation in this animal in order that it should feel nothing?"

This biological logic is explored later in the book as well, in terms of evolution. As we understand evolution currently, mutations and adaptations add and build on one another; there is essentially no discrete change between organisms (except on the single base pair level, of course). That is, life is a continuum. It then follows that consciousness, sentience, the ability to suffer - whatever you call it - is equally a continuum, and that animals, similar to humans, have these capacities even if in a different state. If you "believe" in evolution, you should logically understand animals' ability for sentience as well. Additionally, Ricard dedicates a chapter to explaining that most modern animal behavior science agrees that animals feel pain, have the ability to socialize, weigh choices and make decisions. 

Ricard spends much space exposing the cruelties of the animal breeding and killing industry supported by animal consumption. There are some depictions to induce shock, like in films like Food, Inc., which I believe are important but others see as unnecessarily crude. To me, their crudeness is exactly why they should be discussed. Horrible conditions for animals in factory farms are heard from first-hand accounts by investigators, and we also learn that even "free-range" raised animals all end up at the same slaughterhouses, with the same horrific conditions: blood covered floors, single file lines, constant sounds of distress from the animals, sometimes ineffective killing, and overall brutality. The conditions of slaughterhouse workers are mentioned as well, and we see that working in such a brutish environment causes real effects on people - as we'd expect, of course, but this isn't talked about much. All this goes on right beneath our noses, because the animal killing industries work hard to keep this "bad image" under wraps. Journalists and photographers are denied entry to farms, commercials and media portray animals happily out in fields, and meaningless words are attached to packages to make the consumer feel better about their choice of which animal to eat! 

Other chapters are more practical in nature. The ethics of zoos are explored, the necessity of animal testing questioned, and more agreeable topics to a Western audience like illegal wildlife trade and poaching are discussed. 

I'm worried that this writing will make certain readers feel quite attacked; this is not what I desire. My brother once faulted me for saying veganism was "just obviously the right thing to do," and said I needed big evidence and argument if I were to make big claims like that. He was right. If you eat meat, I don't think you're a bad person, I don't hate you, but I do want you to spend more time thinking about your meat consumption and thinking about the animals. And I think one way this can be done is by reading this book. Ricard's arguments aren't always perfect, yet I believe that if you read this book (even the first half), you can gain a truer understanding of what it means to be a meat-eater in modern society and why protesting this activity is not so silly, weird, or soft after all.

(12/28/2021)