I recently ate out with an omnivore friend of mine who asked me before we ordered if I was okay with him having steak for dinner. His question took me by surprise because people almost never ask me—in my mind, it was akin to my asking him if I could order noodles. It wasn’t my decision to make for him, so I responded, “Of course! Order what you want.” That interaction stuck with me, though, because it made me think about what role I have in influencing the choices my friends and family make.
My decision to be vegetarian is rooted in my personal system of ethics: I refrain from eating meat since doing so substantially limits my carbon footprint. The effects of this decision have been better documented by other, more knowledgeable people, so I’ll list just a couple of quick facts:
- Livestock farming is the one of—if not the single—most significant source of greenhouse gas emissions, ahead of the entire transportation industry
- 80% of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest is directly linked to livestock production
- A single factory farm can produce the same amount of waste as a small city
Unsurprisingly, I’ve made a choice that I believe to be correct by my own personal sense of morality. My friend’s question made me wonder, though, do I have have an obligation to proselytize that choice?
An analogy
There’s a great hypothetical scenario in practical ethics called the drowning child problem. I’m likely going to butcher it, but here goes:
Imagine you are walking by a river on a hot summer day and see a small child, perhaps only two or three years old, struggling to stay afloat. He is by himself and calling out for help. You could swim out into the water and save him from drowning but are wearing your favorite pair of leather pants (it's beyond me why you chose to wear leather pants on a hot summer day, but that was your decision, not mine). Wading into the water to save the child would almost certainly ruin them. So what choice do you make: do you save the child or your pants?
Most people respond to this problem with an enthusiastic, “save the child!” Now, the application of this analogy to vegetarianism is somewhat controversial. What vegetarians would say is that, (1) many people are already suffering (and many more will) as a result of climate change and (2) choosing not to eat meat is a mild inconvenience but not a huge sacrifice—perhaps on par with ruining your favorite pair of pants. (Note: thanks to Peter Singer for these arguments.)
Still, many reasonable people disagree that they are directly responsible for (1) and believe that (2) sets up a false comparison—giving up meat is actually a much greater sacrifice than ruining one’s leather pants. Let’s accept that other people hold these views, but I—and many other vegetarians—do not. The drowning child analogy, for us, is an apt one, which is why we do not eat meat.
Now let’s propose a modification to the original problem:
Suppose you are not yourself next to the river wearing the leather pants. Instead, it is your friend who happens to be on the phone with you when he sees the child drowning. He describes the scenario to you and tells you he's thinking of letting the child drown since he really likes those leather pants and it's not like he knows the child. Why is it his responsibility? The question is then: do you have an obligation to at least try to persuade your friend otherwise? To change his mind, ruin the pants, and save the child?
I think the answer is clearly yes.
So this isn’t really a blog post about the ethics of vegetarianism. I think it’s more a blog post about the ethics of standing by while your friends and loved ones make ethical decisions with which you disagree. I think it’s pretty clear that, at least for decisions that have major ethical implications (e.g., like who to vote for, whether or not to eat meat, etc.), standing by and saying nothing makes you at least somewhat complicit in the outcomes of those decisions.
A caveat
Now, I know I and many of my vegetarian friends recoil at the idea of becoming the food police, constantly nagging their friends and family at every meal. First, we ourselves aren’t perfect—I’m not vegan, for example, and I’m writing these words on a cross-country flight. Clearly, I am not doing everything I can to shrink my carbon footprint. Second, and perhaps more importantly, we vegetarians feel that we don’t want to damage our relationships with our friends and loved ones. In addition to the arguably selfish desire for friendship and to be well-liked, I think that there is also a moral justification for this latter impulse.
I often hear people speak about the somewhat vague notion of social capital, but I think there’s an even more important—and related—concept: ethical capital. The idea is simple: there is a fixed extent to which you can nudge the people in your life to make choices that align with your conception of morality. Everyone has that friend who never lets up—the constant detractor who criticizes just about every choice you make. No listens to this person because it is impossible to live up to his standards—he is spread too thin.
I’d suggest that maintaining your ethical capital matters because it allows you to provide influence when it really matters. I think a lot of young progressives realized this during the 2016 presidential election: they went to work on their friends and family—often painfully straining their personal relationships—in an attempt to prevent Trump from being elected. It unfortunately did not work, but I believe that a similar lens can be applied to many different types of choices.
Back to vegetarianism. I used to think that it was not my place to tell others what food choices they should make. After all, these are some of the most personal decisions people make, and they are often deeply influenced by one’s upbringing and culture. Still, it’s hard to think of another major life decision I’ve made that I so completely believe in. I hope to start engaging on this topic more with friends and family. As many have argued that it is unjust to die wealthy, I would contend that it is also unjust to die rich in ethical capital. Perhaps choosing a concentrated area of advocacy—in my case, making environmentally friendly food choices—is a way to avoid that fate.
And that might not even mean asking others to consider foregoing meat entirely. I recently stumbled upon a handy chart from this organization called the Environmental Working Group that shows the environmental impact of eating different kinds of meat. Evidently, even just cutting out red meat or only eating fish can still have a substantial impact:
Conclusion
I’m still thinking about the best way to be a practical advocate for this cause in my day-to-day life. Clearly, there’s a significant impact that individual people can have by making even small changes in their diets (e.g., giving up red meat, eating meat only certain days of the week). But more importantly, I’ve realized that deciding where we deploy our ethical capital is itself an ethical choice. As for myself, I’m becoming more convinced that food choices is the right area. If you feel differently, for which causes do you advocate most vigorously with your friends and family? Why? I’d love to hear from you!