Is the Practice of Eating Animals Morally Defensible?

“You’re not eating pork any more?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, but why?”

“It’s not that healthy Mom. Plus, pigs are super smart and I don’t want to eat animals that are really intelligent.”

What I didn’t or couldn’t tell my mom was the biggest reason I had decided to stop eating pork was because I was dating Tania Fleming (not her real name), and that Tania Fleming had me turned all the way the *$#! out. If she said she wanted to get matching nipple piercings and face tattoos, I would have done it. Ya boi’s nose was WIDE open, as the old folks say.

Tania and I didn’t last and neither did my pork restriction, but my unease about consuming certain types of animals remained. Several years later, I had another conversation that brought me back to the question of consuming animals.

“Yo good sir, what’s going on?”

“Jon, you have to help me!”

“Okay, what’s up…wait, are you in trouble?”

“Yes! I just agreed to be a vegetarian!”

“Hahahaha! Are you serious?! Why”

“I told Mia that to help her quit smoking, I’d give up something I loved. So I’m giving up meat.”

“Wow. You must really like her—“

“And you have to do this with me.”

At first I was a little miffed that my future best man demanded this of me, but I eventually agreed for two reasons: 1) Not more than 5 years ago I had been in the exact same situation, trying to show solidarity with a woman I wanted to be with, and 2) I was getting ready to travel to rural India for my dissertation research and I knew opportunities to eat meat would be few and far between. So, I agreed to the 3-month trial.

But I still hadn’t solved the nagging moral dilemma of not being able to account for the harm of killing to sustain my own life. Later in graduate school I learned in detail the impact of industrial meat production and consumption on the biosphere, but those arguments weren’t enough to settle the fact that I really loved the taste of other animals.

I began to approach a more satisfying ethical space when, as a postdoc, I began to learn to hunt and had more funds and opportunity to buy from local producers at my farmers market. But it wasn’t until I started listening to Indigenous folks, two in particular, that I found an ethical space of animal consumption that I could comfortably exist within.

It all comes back to reciprocity.

Drs. Robin Wall Kimmerer and Kim TallBear, through their writings and other teachings, helped me to embrace what it meant to be human on this planet and what roles and responsibilities I have as a member of the global community of life.

I find it ironic that, by the time of this realization, I had earned a PhD in ecology and was, by a certain standard, an expert on biological communities and relationships, but I had yet to find a narrative about my humanity that I could comfortably live with.

Humans are heterotrophs, which means we are unable to make the energy we need to sustain our lives. In order for our species to live, we have to consume other species. There’s no way around that reality. But nothing in all my education thus far had given me an explanation of how to live with this reality that didn’t leave me deeply conflicted.

Rather than try to rationalize the harm I needed to cause in order to live, Drs. Kimmerer and TallBear taught me that the shame and guilt I felt about causing this harm was actually rooted in the fact that I wasn’t accounting for said harm in any meaningful way. For them, accounting for the harm our species causes happens by entering into relationships of reciprocity with the beings we eat.

Every animal relative has personhood. Has hopes and dreams. Cares for other members of their people. And when we kill them and eat them, we do those relatives harm. Even if we don’t consume other animals, we do harm to plant and other relatives that also have personhood. The number of animals that die to grow fields a soy so that vegetarians and vegans can live would shock most who chose that diet for “ethical” reasons.

So if our lives are rooted in harm of others, how do we take responsibility for the harm we necessarily cause? By entering into relationships of reciprocity. I love eating Lake Trout, so how am I going to live in responsibility to the members of the Lake Trout community that I don’t eat, the ones who remain? What responsibilities will I take on to end the lives of those I wish to eat quickly so that suffering is minimized? How will I help protect the sovereignty of Lake Trout and all beings of that community so that I and others may continue to benefit from the gifts Lake Trout have to offer?

These questions never came up for me in meaningful ways until I began to learn from the ways Indigenous people viewed and lived their relationships with other beings. It was a revelation and something I am teaching my own children and the young people I teach.

Killing is necessary for human survival. We can’t avoid it. What my socialization in a settler colonial society taught me was a set of morally impotent logics to assuage the guilt of causing harm rather than an epistemology to face the hard truth and be responsible for it.

Do I enjoy killing? Absolutely not. Do I enjoy the fruits of the labor of acquiring the food that will sustain me? Very much so. And a big part of that enjoyment is embracing the responsibility of being a good relative; consciously living in the web of relations that make living on this planet so joyful.

All beings are the same in that we all consciousness that needs respected. And if we are going to benefit from the labor of the lives of others, we must contribute to the cycle of gifts each being makes manifest by being alive. In the video below, I explore these issues as it relates to catch and release fishing.

How are you responsible for the harm you must cause?

What’s in My Pocket

Probably the most important tool in the kitchen and cook can have is a quality chef’s knife. I recently got reacquainted with my chef knife when I tried mongering a Lake Trout without making sure my knife was sharp. It was a nightmare.

I tried mongering more Lake Trout a few weeks later, after using my trusty sharpening stone. It was a brilliant affair and deeply satisfying to have a tool that worked the way it was supposed to.

Chef’s knives can be absurdly expensive; thousands of dollars for the highest quality metal and artistry. One day, I plan to buy a knife from Quintin Middleton, one of the few Black knife makers in the country. His knives are breathtaking, and many are fairly affordable. But if you, like me, aren’t able to drop $400+ on a knife, then I cannot recommend the Vitorinox 8in Chef knife enough.

This $40 knife was tested against some tough competition by America’s Test Kitchen and ended up as their recommended knife for home cooks. I love this knife. It’s not fancy, but it performs just as good as the higher priced knives and has never let me down.

When you buy any knife, a great way to make your investment last is a sharpening stone, so that you can keep the blade sharp. I spent another $50 on a double sided stone and sharpen all my knives about once a month. Entire kits these days are about half this price.

If you’re in the market for a high quality knife and the means to keep it sharp for years to come then consider using the links below to make your purchase. Using these affiliate links in this newsletter is a great way to support me and this publication. Thanks!

• Vitorinox 8in Chef’s Knife

• Sharpening Stone Kit

What’s in My Ear Hole

A dear friend recommended a new book that I’m enjoying quite a bit. I’m less of a fantasy reader than a sci-fi nerd, but good fiction is good fiction, and The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison has captured my attention.

The world building is incredibly rich and the characters are complex and interesting. The plot is a familiar story of an outsider rising to power they never expected to have and don’t particularly want. The main character Maia, who is half elf, half goblin, is thrust into the role of emperor and must learn a culture he was never welcomed into. He must rule knowing that many do not respect him as a person and covet his power, while still trying to hold on to his sense of morality.

I’m about half way through and already looking forward to the sequels.

What’s on My Mind

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about side hustles and ways of diversifying the ways I earn a living. Higher ed, like so many institutions in the United States, is failing on a trajectory of collapse that’s not at all hard to imagine.

My last place of employment is in the midst of a catastrophic collapse that, quite frankly, has me shook for the future of my career no matter what institution I’m employed by.

So over the last half year, I’ve been thinking, working, learning, and planning to try and make something out of the creative writing, film making, and adventuring I really enjoy doing. The amount of money people are able to make with online content businesses is truly astounding I’m learning, and, as a way to not be trapped on a ship that may sink, I’m seeing what I can make of set of things I already really enjoy and don’t see myself ever giving up.

Stay tuned in 2024 as I build on this newsletter, my YouTube channel, and other forms of online content.

Announcements

Check out this video on hunting and eating groundhogs. I talk a lot about the themes of this week’s newsletter. Please leave a comment so we can continue to conversation!

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I’ll talk to y’all Sunday.

Cheers,

Jonathan