Richard Dawkins on meat eating

[Guest guest]

*You mention in the book 'The Ancestor's Tale' that you are appalled at the

works of liberal thinkers from 100 years ago—I think this is part of " The

Grasshopper's Tale. " You are appalled at their comments on race, and you

wonder what scholars 100 years from now might be appalled at. You speculate

that it might be our treatment of other species. This made me wonder: Are

you a vegetarian?*

 

No, I'm not, and that's an interesting question. What I believe is that we

should try to minimize suffering. And so I would have no objection to

killing something to eat it, provided it doesn't suffer. So I'm much more

worried about the suffering in slaughterhouses and in factory farms—the

dread that might enter the mind of a cow or pig when it's being led to the

slaughter. To the extent that slaughtering practices are humane, I see no

objection to using animals for meat.

 

The objection to using humans for meat would be not just that they are

human, but that they would feel fear, they would know what was coming to

them, they would be in a position to suffer in a way that a pig or a cow, if

it was well treated, would not. So my aim would always be to reduce

suffering, not to take a kind of absolutist position that there is something

special and unique about humans which entitles them to exploit and use other

species of animal for any purpose.