I Eat With Gusto, Damn! You Bet!

Here's a little story for my avid readership.

I first started getting into philosophy back in year 12, and through first year Uni became increasingly sure that philosophy was what I wanted to spend at least the next few years doing. I was already, at this stage, pretty sure that I would quite happily label myself a Utilitarian, and was finding out that moral philosophy was probably where my interests particularly lay.

But then... In late 2004, around when I started reading about Peter Singer, and particularly after I actually read his book Practical Ethics over the summer break, I started to realise that, if I really believed in the truth of Utilitarianism as a moral theory, and actually committed myself to being a moral person, there was, frankly, no reasonable way to escape the fact that the vast, vast majority of meat-eating that I do is horribly, horribly immoral.

I won't argue that here, suffice to say it comes pretty easily from
a) Pleasure is good, pain is bad.
b) Animals feel pleasure and pain.
c) Practices such as factory farming are terribly painful for animals.

At the time I decided, due to a lack of willpower or commitment or something, that I'd delay forming any firm opinion on the matter until after I'd actually taken a Practical Ethics course. After all, maybe there were some decent arguments against it, maybe I'd find myself less convinced by Utilitarian sentiments, whatever. But then, halfway through second year I decided not to take that course quite yet.

Anyway, now I'm finally taking it, and, as I suspected, it has, so far, if anything, strengthened my convictions against meat-eating. Actually, that might not be strictly true; I'd say, in comparison to how I felt last year, I've probably become more accepting of the idea that consumption of free-range products may be morally permissible. But the point is, I'm more convinced than ever that there's no getting out of the conclusion that the meat eating practices I currently live by are horribly, monstrously immoral.

So... Now what? It seems to me that, unless either:
a) Something convinces me that my moral conclusions are wrong,
b) I can find some rational justification for giving up on morality
c) I choose to give up on philosophy, and a commitment to the truth, altogether, or
d) I'm willing to just pigheadedly think of myself as a terribly weak-willed person, as if that someone justifies a lack of effort
then I'm going to really have to try to alter my behaviour...

Of course, at the least I think that would only really necessitate avoiding factory-farmed products, making an effort instead to find free-range, ethically produced stuff. (I have seen Free-Range ham around, but, except perhaps when it comes to eggs, the market for this kind of stuff really doesn't seem to be as big here as it apparently is in Europe.) So maybe that'll be relatively easy. Well, I'll try to give it a try, anyway.

Of course, I suspect some people might disagree with my conclusions, so feel free to loudly argue in my direction (or tell me that I'm wrong, and a grotesquely ugly freak) any time!