Peter Singer: Why Vegan?

Professor Peter Singer is a prominent, academically distinguished advocate of veganism. He if anyone can write a compelling argument for veganism.

It seems there is no compelling argument for veganism.

Why Vegan? is a quick read. (Took me only 1½ years as the father of a child from newborn on! This may also explain why my previous blog post came out some two years ago.) A pocket-size paperback of 85 pages, it consists of several veganism-related articles spanning five decades. The text is easy to comprehend and suitable even for the not-so-academical reader.

All that is left

The book attempts to rationally argument for vegan ethics mainly in the first two chapters. Singer apparently believes that he’s making so strong a case that he confidently goes on to demonstrate the urgency of adopting veganism, describing the plight of factory-farmed livestock in horrific detail. An analytical reader will see through his attempt to actually promote veganism by instilling empathy towards animals, applying a narrative that emphasises their human-like qualities and leaving out the details that would make them seem less antropomorphic. (I’d like to point out at this point that vegans are typically city-dwellers with a much narrower experience of animals than the rural human.)

What striked me as surprising was the overt display of left-wing ideology in the ethical argumentation. (Singer has also authored a book titled Marx, by the way.) This is probably indicative of the well-known hegemony of leftism that has established itself in the academia over the last several decades. Singer may find it quite sufficient to only convince the leftists of veganism as those are the overwhelming majority in his world. The first two chapters of Why Vegan? pertain to Singer’s 1975 book Animal Liberation, but their message seems perfectly contemporary to someone who has followed the culture wars of the recent years. Cancel culture, for example, can be found on the book’s pages—the fear of being left on the wrong side of history may well convince a leftist to turn vegan:

If we wish to avoid being numbered among the oppressors, we must be prepared to rethink all our attitudes to other groups, including the most fundamental of them.

The very point of the 1975 book on veganism is to extend the victim hierarchy to include animals, or ”non-human animals” as Singer puts it:

This book is about the tyranny of human over non-human animals. This tyranny has caused and today is still causing an amount of pain and suffering that can only be compared with that which resulted from the centuries of tyranny by white humans over black humans.

When a majority group – women – began their campaign some thought we had come to the end of the road. Discrimination on the basis of sex, it was said, was the last form of discrimination to be universally accepted and practiced without secrecy or pretense, even in those liberal circles that have long prided themselves on their freedom from prejudice against racial minorities. ¶ We should always be wary of talking of ’the last remaining form of discrimination.’

Yeah, spoiler alert: there will always be a newly found group of victims. Forms of discrimination are the renewable fuel of leftist activism. (This is not my discovery but one that has been pointed out by many conservative political commentators over the years.)

Beyond religion?

Thanks to my scepticism about veganism, Why Vegan? is a great book for me to comprehensively question the tenets of moral philosophy. My earlier adventures on the field of philosophical literature have been limited, but I have become convinced of the necessity of the transcendent point of view for an honestly established ethical system. Peter Singer doesn’t shake that conviction. He does claim to go beyond religion:

Christians, Jews and Moslems may appeal to scripture to justify their dominion over animals. Once we move beyond a religious outlook, we have to face ’the animal question’ without any prior assumption that animals were created for our benefit or that our use of them has divine sanction. If we are just one species among others that have evolved on this planet, and if the other species include billions of nonhuman animals who can also suffer, or conversely can enjoy their lives, should our interests always count for more than theirs?

To utterly destroy Singer’s vegan ethics, I can simply replace that last clause with: ”do we have any moral responsibilities that other animals don’t?”

Singer and his fellow Oxford Vegetarians from his student years around 1970 were non-religious (with the exception of Andrew Linzey). No wonder he arrogantly sees his own discipline as reaching beyond religion. Let me just point out that utilitarianism, his tool for reaching ethical conclusions, was developed in the context of Christian culture. It couldn’t have been conceived anywhere else.

Singer has his own scripture to invoke when morally equating animal suffering with human suffering. It’s biological literature. This seems to be the culmination of his ostensible rationale for veganism:

We commonly use the word ’animal’ to mean ’animals other than human beings.’ This usage sets humans apart from other animals, implying that we are not ourselves animals – an implication that everyone who has had elementary lessons in biology knows to be false.

I think Singer is missing something while imagining that humans are categorising themselves apart from animals in order to be morally able to inflict suffering upon them. The semantics has far wider uses, in reality. There are tons of reasons to separate ”non-human animals” from humans in everyday contexts. That humans are categorised as animals in biology doesn’t mean that they should be in other respects. This reminds me of Maurice v. Judd, the trial to decide whether whales are fish.

Singer quotes Jeremy Bentham to reach the pivotal conclusion that it is a creature’s ability to suffer that defines whether it deserves moral protections. ”So the only question is: do animals other than man suffer?” This is also the book’s subtitle. Singer goes on to assert that animals suffer the same as humans. But this isn’t the only question, after all:

There will be many readers of this book who will agree that factory farming involves an unjustifiable degree of exploitation of sentient creatures, and yet will want to say that there is nothing wrong with rearing animals for food, provided it is done ’humanely.’ These people are saying, in effect, that although we should not cause animals to suffer, there is nothing wrong with killing them.

Singer ridicules this viewpoint, stating that if it were only suffering that matters, we would be obliged to exterminate all animal life—to oppose this is to place some value on animal life. But I must say, given the weight Singer has given to suffering earlier on, he is ridiculing himself.

Introducing the value of life into the equation complicates matters.

When discussing experimenting on animals, Singer draws a comparison between the animal victims of these cruel trials and human infants.

There is no characteristic that human infants possess that adult mammals do not have to the same or a higher degree.

Singer reluctantly acknowleges it can be argued that the infant has potential of developing higher cognition than animals. But he insists that holding this viewpoint would require opposing abortion for consistency. And that this would still allow for using humans with severe brain injuries for experimentation.

For a reason left untold, Singer doesn’t seem to oppose abortion for consistency with his own moral standards of avoiding causing suffering and valuing life. Vegans in general, leftists they tend to be (as demonstrated in Why Vegan? as earlier noted), usually advocate accessible abortions. Veganism makes me uneasy not because of how vegans want to treat animals but because of the implications for the value of human life (and the discrepancy between the two).

What essentially distinguishes a human infant from an adult mammal in an ethical context is simply its humanity, being human. The truth is, humans’ special position in the moral hierarchy as opposed to animals originates from their Creator, the objective Goodness, God. Defining suffering as the objective evil in atheistic philosophy is artificial and baseless.

The real case against animal cruelty

Animal Liberation will require greater altruism on the part of mankind than any other liberation movement, since animals are incapable of demanding it for themselves, or of protesting against their exploitation by votes, demonstrations, or bombs.

They are also incapable of granting humans and other species (and often even their own kind) the same courtesy. Animals are not equal moral actors to men any more than are animal rights an obvious counterpart to human rights.

Despite everything I’ve written, I do not want to approve of animal cruelty nor to contribute to excessive suffering in the exploitation of livestock. I do see moral implications there. Abusive treatment of animals is morally reprehensible. Not directly because of what happens to the animal as a victim but because of what such behaviour makes of the culpable human and his actions. There must be a reason why the Greek word for ”(morally) good” originally also meant ”beautiful.”

[This book] does not tell us that we will become healthier, or enjoy life more, if we cease exploiting animals.

I would argue that the author does enjoy life more on a diet that leaves him free from feeling guilt over every meal. As he himself writes earlier on:

If we did give the issue serious consideration, if, for instance, we looked closely at the conditions in which animals live in the modern ’factory farms’ that produce our meat, we might be made uncomfortable about ham sandwiches, roast beef, fried chicken, and all those other items in our diet that we prefer not to think of as dead animals.

The pros

Why Vegan? has obviously hit a nerve and provoked me to a ”counter-attack.” This is definitely to the book’s credit—who doesn’t appreciate facing a book with the capability of doing this?

Also, Peter Singer does make a few points that I can agree with:

• Consumers who purchase meat do have a share in the moral responsibility for the suffering of livestock. They should be aware of the practices and knowingly accept their complicity.
• Eating meat does have implications for humans’ health and the environment that should be considered.
• When basing ethics on atheistic philosophy, there’s a case to be made for extending moral principles from humans to animals. Of course, atheistic philosophy also makes all moral principles negotiable and ultimately based on absolutely nothing.

The booklet gave me a deeper understanding of the everyday realities of factory farming. It’s far from pretty.

Also, Singer’s dal recipe is quite good and easy to cook.

Why Vegan? is a good book for a devout leftist who wants a superficial idea of why he/she needs to be vegan, to have something to explain to others, although his/her real motive for adopting veganism is social pressure.

Book club: B. K. Dell: Mead Mountain

You can call it a book club or you can just say it was I and my wife reading a novel together. And she bailed out long before the book was finished, claiming it was too boring—there you have one crushing review already.

You know that passage in the Bible where Jesus teaches that with a little faith you can move a mountain? B. K. Dell’s Mead Mountain is about a pastor who believes it is God’s will that he do just that, with the media relaying the event for the whole world to see. The novel builds up the spectacle by narrating the days preceding the grand event, with the pastor doing his job reaching out helping people. (The other member of my book club was quite unhappy about the apparent ”the end justifies the means” attitude that the pastor applies.) The reader gets to know the characters, ordinary people with a variety of ordinary, realistic and touching problems, even hopeless situations. I found the book’s depiction of domestic violence quite viscerally empathy-stirring.

Will the mountain move? I was so anxious to find out the result that I never considered abandoning the book like my wife did. I was a bit worried that the ending might prove bad, though. How do you resolve this kind of a tension and not let down the Christian faith while also avoiding a childish deus ex machina solution that ends up being demotivational, too?

I’m happy to say: Dell does fine.

The book’s message is quite nice, and the themes it handles were thought-provoking to me. One important theme is the nature of faith. As a Lutheran I’m wary of depicting faith as an action that the believer must make in order to receive God’s gifts. Faith itself is a gift from God. However, Mead Mountain is accurate in pointing out that believeing something irrefutable doesn’t count as faith. The pastor has a smart thing to say about this, but I’m not spoiling it.

Some of the twists of the story are too straightforward or syrupy, but generally, I consider Mead Mountain a book worth reading.

Rokottamattoman synninpäästö

Helsingin piispa Teemu Laajasalo kirjoittaa kansankirkon piispaksi poikkeuksellisen jyrkästi Helsingin Sanomain yleisönosastolla. Aiheena on COVID-19-rokotuksista kieltäytyminen ja etiikka. Rokotukset eivät ole Laajasalon ydinosaamisaluetta – enpä usko, että piispa kirjoittaisi yhtä suorasukaisesti siitä, mistä hänellä pitäisi olla eniten kompetenssia kirjoittaa, eli kristinuskosta.

Laajasalon mukaan jokaisella on velvollisuus ottaa koronarokote. Hän maalailee, että rokotteesta kieltäytyvä estää välillisesti esimerkiksi syöpäsairaiden pääsyä hoitoon tai omaisten pääsyä sairaalassa hoidettavana olevan tueksi. Piispa vetää mutkat suoriksi: ”Kiistattoman lääketieteellisen näytön perusteella paras ja tehokkain tapa suojata lähimmäisiä kulkutaudista seuraavalta kärsimykseltä, kurjuudelta ja kuolemalta on ottaa itse rokote.” Raflaavan kirjoituksen mukaan rokotteesta kieltäytyvä paitsi toimii tieteenvastaisesti on myös välinpitämätön suhteessa lähimmäisensä kärsimykseen ja kuolemaan. Laajasalo kannattaa rokottamattomien elämään kohdistuvien rajoitusten kiristämistä. Ne ovat hänen mukaansa lähimmäisenrakkautta – kuulostaa tyrmistyttävältä, mutta niin hän kirjoittaa.

Corona Virus Vaccination (by The Focal Project, CC BY-NC)

Eettinen pohdinta rokottamisen ympärillä yleisesti on monimutkaista, ja erityisesti COVID-19:n erityispiirteet ja vielä epävarma ja hataralla pohjalla oleva tieto puoltaisivat suurempaa varovaisuutta sanankäänteissä. Rokottamisen etiikka on miltei eriskummallista, sillä siihen liittyy eräitä paradokseja. Joudutaan pohtimaan välillisiä, hyvinkin kaukaisista asioista riippuvia ja monitekijäisiä lopputuloksia.

Rokottamattomuuden riskit yhteisölle riippuvat sekä rokotteen että taudin ominaisuuksista, mutta laskelmiin on otettava mukaan vielä rokotuskattavuuskin. Jos yksittäinen ihminen jättää ottamatta koronarokotteen, on loppujen lopuksi melko pieni todennäköisyys, että häneltä saatava COVID-19-tartunta johtaisi kuoleman tai sairaalahoidon aiheuttavaan tautimuotoon jollakulla. Kuolemia ja sairaalahoitoja toisaalta kuitenkin aiheutuu (monet niistä rokottamattomille), ja monessa tartuntaketjussa on mukana rokottamattomia.

Myös tuhkarokkorokottamattoman todennäköisyys saada ja levittää tartunta on pieni, mutta koska rokote tehoaa noin 100-prosenttisesti ja tauti leviää erittäin helposti, rokottamaton henkilö on rokotettuun verrattuna todellinen riskihenkilö, ja koska rokottamattomia on vähän, yksittäisen rokottamattoman rooli tartuntaketjussa on jopa ratkaiseva. Tuhkarokon harvinaisuus huomioiden yksittäinen rokottamatta jäävä lapsi tuskin saa koskaan tartuntaa, mutta jos massoittain lapsia jätettäisiin rokottamatta, seurauksena olisi tikittävä aikapommi.

COVID-19-rokote suojaa melko hyvin vakavalta tautimuodolta ja kuolemalta. Se ei estä tartuttamista, mutta pienentää tartunnan riskiä ja tartuntatapauksessa lyhentää aikaa, jolloin tauti tartuttaa eteenpäin. Toisin kuin Teemu Laajasalo väittää, rokotteen ottaminen ei ole tehokkain tapa suojata muita COVID-19:ltä. Tehokkaampaa olisi eristäytyä kotiin.

Laajasalon väite rokotuksen eettisestä pakottavuudesta saattaisi pitää paikkansa, jos rokottautuminen olisi täysin triviaali asia. Rokotteen ottamisesta on kuitenkin vaivaa ja siitä voi saada haittavaikutuksia. Jos pohditaan merkitykseltään kevyempiä asioita, tulee esimerkkinä mieleen käsien pesu. Se on jotain, mitä yleensä oletetaan kulttuurissamme kaikilta, mikä on helposti tehtävissä esim. WC-käynnin jälkeen, mikä pienentää monien taudinaiheuttajien leviämistä ja mikä hyödyttää myös käsienpesijää itseään. Haittaa siitä voi periaatteessa olla käsi-ihottumasta kärsivälle ihmiselle, mutta hänkin myös hyötyy käsihygienian ylläpitämisestä, jotta ihottuma ei infektoituisi. Edistäisikö piispa Laajasalo myös käsien pesemistä vastaavanlaisella ankarasanaisella mielipidekirjoituksella?

Toinen esimerkki: Onko maskin käyttämättä jättäminen moraalitonta? Nyt tullaan vielä etäisemmän välillisen vaikutuksen äärelle kuin rokottamisen suhteen. Lisäksi törmätään siihen edellä mainittuun tosiseikkaan, että tieto on vielä hataraa. Maitittakoon vaikkapa norjalaistutkimus, jonka mukaan 200 000 ihmisen täytyisi pitää maskia, jotta viikon aikana estettäisiin yksi koronatartunta. Kuinka moraalitonta maskitta kulkeminen tällöin on? (Maskin hyöty riippuu toki olosuhteista ja epidemian voimakkuudesta.)

Kysymys rokottamisesta ja etiikasta ei ole niin suoraviivainen kuin Teemu Laajasalo kirjoittaa. Ei hänen tekstinsä tarkoituksena toki lienekään olla moraalifilosofinen essee aiheesta, vaan hän halunnee viestittää voimakkaasti omaa kantaansa kysymykseen sekä vedota rokottautumisen puolesta lukijoihin, jotka enimmäkseen eivät ole akateemisia eivätkä näin nurise hänen yksinkertaistetuille väitteilleen siitä, mitä tiede sanoo.

On tärkeää, että ihmisillä on oikeus päättää omasta hoidostaan. Tämä on erityisen painava asia silloin, kun kyse on terveeseen ihmiseen kohdistuvasta lääketieteellisestä toimenpiteestä, johon liittyy haittavaikutuksen riski. COVID-19-rokotteen ominaisuudet huomioiden en voi yhtyä Teemu Laajasalon näkemykseen sen ottamisen moraalisesta pakottavuudesta. Asia on ajateltava niin, että vakavalle tautimuodolle alttiiden ihmisten tulisi halutessaan suojata itseään ottamalla rokote, ja heidän on elettävä sen tosiasian kanssa, että he saattavat ihmisten ilmoilla olla tekemisissä myös rokottamattomien kanssa. (Todellisuudessahan COVID-19 ei edes ole ainoa huolenaihe monisairaalle ihmiselle, vaan influenssa tai jokin muukin tarttuva hengitystieinfektio saattaa olla hänelle kohtalokas.)

Välitön haitan aiheuttaminen toiselle on selkeämpi eettinen kysymys: jos COVID-19:ään sopivia oireita poteva lähtee ihmisten ilmoille, silloin hän toimii piittaamatta toisten terveydestä ja hengestä, ja se on yksiselitteisen tuomittavaa.

Välillistä haitan aiheuttamista tulisi pyrkiä vähentämään omalla toiminnalla, jolloin rokotteen ottaminen on yksi keino monien joukossa. Jos itsellä ei ole erityisasiantuntemusta aiheesta, ei varmaan ole paljon perusteita toimia terveysviranomaisten tuoreimpia suosituksia vastaan, eihän?

Toisaalta COVID-19 ei ole maailman ainoa sairaus eikä ainoa haitta, mitä ihminen voi toisille aiheuttaa. Tälle perspektiiville on tultu laajalti sokeiksi pandemian myötä. Teemu Laajasalo tavoittaa tavallaan jotain tästä mielipidekirjoituksessaan, kun hän huomioi, miten koronan hoitaminen on pois muiden sairauksien hoidosta. Koronan ohella voisi kuitenkin syyttää montaa muutakin asiaa, vaikkapa alkoholin käyttöä, joka näkyy äkillisissä sairastumisissa ja tapaturmissa huomattavan paljon.

COVID-19:stä ja sitä vastaan kehitetyistä rokotteista liikkuu paljon virhekäsityksiä, harhaanjohtamista ja valheita. Rokotteen vakavien haittavaikutusten riski on pieni ja teho merkittävä. Rokottautuminen on ilman muuta vahvasti suositeltavaa vakavalle tautimuodolle alttiille henkilöille. Se on hyvä idea myös perusterveille nuorille aikuisille, sillä laaja rokottautuminen vähentää epidemian leviämistä ja vakavia tapauksia myös harvemmin vakavasti sairastuvissa ikäryhmissä – lisäksi yksilö hyötyy, kun lieväänkin tautimuotoon sairastumisen riski pienenee ja esimerkiksi töissä pystyy käymään ja perheestä pitämään huolta ilman hankaluuksia.

Book club: Dave Patty: Father God: Daring to Draw Near

From personal experience, families of our acquaintances, and popular culture, we have an idea of fatherhood—what an ideal dad would be like and how real-life fathers fall short of it. In the Bible, our Creator, God Almighty, reveals Himself as our perfect, Heavenly Father. Our experiences of earthly fathers may help us perceive our relationship with the Heavenly Father, but they may also mislead us, as there is no earthly incarnation of a perfect dad. Dave Patty has concentrated on this issue in his ministry in Czechia. He explains his experiences and shares the fruits of his discoveries in his book, Father God, which could also be described as a self-help book; it contains instructions for the reader to work on his or her relationship with the Father.

In our two-person book club, we shared our thoughts and prayed together on the book’s topics. It did bring about some relevant ideas to me. The author is encouraging the reader to continue working on the subject even after finishing the book.

What raises some skepticism about the book is how it, at times, seems to suggest that any problem you’re facing in life is about your father/Father issues. Also, the self-help part leads the reader to expect phenomena of direct revelation that are rather unfamiliar to me. On the positive side, Father God is Biblically based and sound, however. Spiritually, it enables discoveries with great beneficial potential.

Father God: Daring to Draw Near is available as a paperback and as a Kindle ebook.

Book club: Obianuju Ekeocha: Target Africa: Ideological Neocolonialism in the Twenty-First Century

It’s surprising and disappointing to find out about the weight of ideology in the context of international aid/development coöperation. Target Africa is probably the first book I’ve read from an African author in my life, as well as the first account of developmental aid I’ve heard from an African perspective. I wouldn’t have expected to find such wide criticism toward international aid from the recipient’s side. It’s unexpectedly very similar to what right-wing commentators are saying about the matter in the First World.

To me, the population explosion has always seemed like a legitimate threat, and I’ve been convinced that shipping contraceptives to Africa is a priority. Obianuju Ekeocha makes me question this conviction, however. She shows the statistics revealing that Africans generally don’t have unmet contraception needs and are actually desiring numerous offspring. She exposes the grotesqueness of delivering millions worth of condoms to Africans living in extreme poverty, those who are struggling to satisfy their basic daily needs. She informs the reader of the fact that providing contraception in the Western zeitgeist of the sexual revolution leads to risky sexual behaviour and even unwanted pregnancies. Abortion services are used for erasing the evidence and consequences of sexual abuse.

The ideological neocolonialism targeting Africa is about the same ideologies that have established a continuously advancing hegemony in the Western world. Africa is being pressured to adopt the same leftist principles that are debated in our culture wars: sexual liberation, abortion, same-sex marriage, third-wave feminism. Africa is far more skeptical toward these issues than the wealthy First World, though. Africans have, partially successfully, resisted Western attempts to influence their legislation and cultural values. Grassroots action may have constituted a stronger resistance than politicians and decision-makers, often corrupt ones—they succumb to Western monetary resources, a part of which go to their own pockets. Ekeocha has actually devoted a section of Target Africa to the corruption in development coöperation.

Ekeocha analyses with witty insight why our values are decaying and what the consequences are. This is interesting in the context of Europe as well as that of Africa. Ekeocha boldly writes about these issues using their true names. Just a couple of examples: Funding abortion services in Africa in the name of preventing poverty translates to killing the children of the poor. Western governments and organisations have taken strategic positions to control African nations and are essentially destroying their cultures and institutions.

Target Africa is calling for Africans to take control of their own development and to protect their cultural values from degrading influences. Obianuju Ekeocha exposes the problems and sketches the solutions. I sincerely recommend this book, as it provides a well-written critical view of development aid and the ideological weight it carries that isn’t generally discussed in public. The book also gives new insight into recent and current ideological developments in the West.

Target Africa is available as an ebook or paperback from the publisher, Ignatius Press.