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Dr. Gary Steiner - A Vegan Diet is a Moral Obligation - P1/2
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As we recognize
more and more
the similarities rather than
the differences between
humans and animals,
the idea of a dividing line
between the two becomes
more and more obscure
and difficult to draw.
The difference between
humans and animals
is not at all clear.
Halo thoughtful viewers,
and welcome to
Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants.
On today's program,
we meet Dr. Gary Steiner,
a John Howard Harris
Professor of Philosophy
at Bucknell University,
USA and author
who strongly believes
that animals merit a
moral status comparable
to that of human beings.
He has written
several books including
“Descartes
as a Moral Thinker,”
“Anthropocentrism
and Its Discontents”
and his most recent work,
“Animals and
the Moral Community:
Mental Life, Moral Status,
and Kinship.”
Dr. Steiner
considers himself
an “ethical vegan”
and now describes
what is meant by this term.
People come to veganism
for different reasons.
Some people do it
because of health concerns,
some people do it for
environmental concerns,
and some people do it,
because they feel
that we have specific
moral obligations
toward animals.
People
who are ethical vegans
believe that
we have the obligation
not to eat animals,
not to use them.
Depending upon how strict
a vegan a person is,
they might decide
not to wear leather,
not to wear silk,
not to wear wool.
Then of course
this opens up the door
to all sorts of
other sorts of products,
like medications
and cosmetics that
might involve animals
in their production
or in the composition.
So to be an ethical vegan
is to recognize,
as a specific direct duty
to animals, to treat them
with kindness and
to employ the principle of
ahimsa or non-violence
toward them.
For Dr. Steiner,
becoming an ethical vegan
was a gradual evolution,
with refinement
coming over the course
of many years.
What led me
to ethical veganism was
a long process in my life.
It started
from a very early age
with simply loving animals,
having a real feeling
of kinship with animals.
And as I got older and
went into my adolescence,
and into my 20s, I started
thinking more seriously
about the contradiction
between loving animals
on the one hand,
and eating them
and wearing them
and so forth.
And so I stopped
eating meat one day, and
I just never ate it again.
So I went vegetarian first
of all.
But I was still thinking
about other things like
eggs and dairy products
and the fact
that the production
and consumption of
those sorts of substances
requires viewing animals
and using animals
in certain ways.
I decided
that it was something
I couldn’t participate in
any longer.
I stopped eating
all animal products
at that point.
And then over a period
of years I started
thinking more and more
about the fact
if I am not going to
eat animal products,
I have to start thinking
about wearing them,
and doing other things
that involve the uses
of animals
as basically objects
for the satisfaction
of human needs.
More recently
it has moved on to things
like cosmetics, medications
and other things.
After a period of time,
Dr. Steiner felt
it was not enough for him
to simply live an
ethically vegan lifestyle.
He decided get his students
at Bucknell University
thinking about
society’s views of animals
and how animals
see the world.
I teach a variety
of different types
of philosophy courses,
and starting
about 10 years ago,
I started to teach some
courses specifically on,
or related to,
questions about animals
and the relationship
between human beings
and animals, questions
about the nature
of animal cognition
or the mental
or subjective experience
of animals, and, how
those types of experiences
are related to the
moral status of animals.
Dr. Steiner now shares
how the students
have responded
to these courses.
When students
are college age, and
when they’re in college,
they’re probably
at the most curious
they’re going to be
in their adult lives, before
they start formulating
and establishing certain
sorts of convictions
and ways
of looking at the world.
They are
relatively open-minded
when they’re in college.
And I’ve had
a surprising number
of students
who’ve responded in a
very positive and curious
and concerned way
about the work
that I do on animals.
I have heard from present
and former students
as well as
a lot of other people.
And, some students
remain fast
in their convictions.
In response to
the growing interest,
Dr. Steiner began offering
even more courses about
the relationship between
humans and animals,
and our moral obligation
towards animals.
I taught an introduction
to philosophy course,
just this past semester,
under the title “Gods,
Humans and Animals.”
And this is something
I I just thought would be
an interesting thing to do,
partly because
that would have me
addressing primarily
not college seniors but
brand new college students,
first-semester
college students.
And I wasn’t really sure
how they would react,
and this is what happened.
I thought they would be
taking the course because
they wanted to spend time
learning about
the western conceptions
of God, particularly
in the Christian tradition,
and also about
western conceptions
of humans.
What ended up happening
was that the students
seemed the most
intellectually engaged by
the last part of the course,
which was on views
about animals.
And I was fascinated
to find that these students
have been very curious.
The discussions
have been extremely lively.
I’ve always been
a little bit inhibited
about sharing my views
about animals.
I never thought about
myself as an activist
or anything like that.
I think of myself
as a philosophy professor
who writes books
for other philosophers
about animals.
And what I’m just
beginning to find out is
there are people out there,
including my students,
who have a real
fascination with this,
that they’ve never
thought about these
questions before, and
they realize that they’re
very important questions,
and they want to
think about them.
When we return,
we will hear
more wise thoughts
from Dr. Gary Steiner
about the moral status
of animals.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.
The first thing
one has to see
is that sentient creatures
and chickens are
much more intelligent than
we give them credit for.
They have very elaborate
social systems,
social organization, they
have a very good sense
of what's going on.
And we not only
show them no respect
but we're committing,
I think, a real sin
by killing them.
Welcome back to
Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants,
as we continue
our interview
with Dr. Gary Steiner,
a John Howard Harris
Professor of Philosophy
at Bucknell University,
USA and the author of
several thoughtful books
including his latest:
“Animals and
the Moral Community:
Mental Life, Moral Status,
and Kinship.”
In your latest book, you
argue that animals merit
moral status comparable
to that of human beings.
Can you tell us more
about that?
Yes.
The idea is this:
the Western
philosophical tradition
going all the way back
to the ancient Greeks,
has taken the view
that human beings are
fundamentally superior
to animals.
And they gave a variety
of arguments or reasons
for that.
One is the idea that God
or the gods created nature
to satisfy human beings,
they created animals
and plants and so forth
for the sake
of human beings,
specifically for us,
which means we can do
anything we want with them,
and we don’t
have to worry about
the moral implications.
Another traditional line
or argumentation
has been that animals are
inferior to human beings
in terms of
their cognitive abilities.
And that translates
into the idea
that human beings
are morally superior and
that we can use animals
and that the animals…
are not
morally comparable
to human beings.
Dr. Steiner is challenging
this traditional belief system
by asking society
to look at our
animal co-inhabitants from
a different perspective.
What philosophers
have traditionally argued
is animals can't
think of themselves
as individual selves
among other selves.
They can't think about
the idea that
they have obligations
or that they have rights,
anything like that.
And all of these things
have led philosophers
in the West traditionally
to the conclusion that
animals don't really have
any kind of moral status,
certainly nothing
comparable to
that of human beings.
And in my work
on animals,
what I started to recognize
and what I’ve argued for
is this: differences
in intellectual ability
and differences
in cognitive ability
don't have
any moral significance
whatsoever any more than
they do among humans.
So the fact that
there are people out there
who are smarter than me
doesn't mean that they're
morally superior to me.
And by the same token,
the fact that
or the supposed fact that
I'm somehow smarter
than my cat, Pindar,
has nothing to do
with whether I have a right
to use him or treat him
like a toy
or own him as property
or anything like that.
What's important,
moral status
is not how smart you are
or how sophisticated
your cognitive abilities are
but rather the notion
of sentience,
which is the ability
to feel pleasure and pain,
the capacity to suffer
and so forth.
And these I think are,
capacities that go together
with consciousness.
And that I think is
what’s decisive morally.
Pindar’s subjective life
is really no different
than mine.
And I don't see how
my ability to do math or
write philosophy books
or to employ language
in the way in which
human beings use it
has any significance
whatsoever for
the relative moral status
of myself versus, say,
a cat or a dog or any
other sentient creature.
Dr. Steiner says that by
recognizing that sentience
is paramount,
we will always respect
and protect all animal life.
So, if we could agree
that sentience, rather
than cognitive ability,
is really what's important
as a criterion
and for moral status
then I don't think
there's any way
that somebody could say
that objectively my life
matters more than Pindar’s.
My life matters to me
exactly as much
as Pindar’s matters
in the following sense.
His life
matters infinitely to him
and mine
matters infinitely to me.
So, from that standpoint,
I don't think
there's any way of saying
that my life matters
more than his.
And so his (life)
should be considered
from a moral standpoint
to be every bit
as significant as mine.
And I think that's true for
any being that is sentient.
My own view is,
we, animals and humans
are morally comparable
to one another and,
I should add, human beings
are after all, animals.
How do we
ethically justify keeping
animal companions
while consuming
the flesh of other animals?
How can we live and eat
more consciously?
Please join us again
tomorrow for Part 2
of our program
as the insightful
Dr. Gary Steiner answers
these and other
important questions.
For more details
on Dr. Steiner,
please visit
www.FacStaff.Bucknell.edu/GSteiner
Books by Dr. Steiner
are available on
Amazon.com
Thank you for joining us
on today’s Animal World:
Our Co-Inhabitants.
Coming up next is
Enlightening Entertainment
after Noteworthy News,
here on
Supreme Master Television.
May we all grow each day
in wisdom, grace,
and compassion.
Why is it important
to refrain from
animal-based products?
Once you start learning
more about animal rights,
you really can’t
not be vegan.
As soon as you start
reading about
the dairy industry and
the egg production industry,
there’s no choice,
you can’t go back….
Hear some useful tips
on selecting food,
clothing, cosmetics,
and other items that are
compassionate to animals
on “Living the
Cruelty-Free Lifestyle”
Monday, February 22
on Healthy Living.
Fabrice Nicolino
of France has recently
written a book
documenting the horrors
of factory farming
in France.
It’s a book that
I’ve really dedicated
explicitly to the animals,
dead without having lived,
and that’s very important
for me.
There is this sentiment
that obsesses me,
a real sadness.
I tell myself,
“Why have we humans
dared to treat animals
in this way?
How do we dare
treat them like that?”
Please watch Part 2 of
“Stop Animal Cruelty:
Fabrice Nicolino, Author
of ‘The Meat Industry
Threatens Our World’”
today on
Supreme Master Television.
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