Credit score: Pixabay/CC0 Public Area
Writing in a letter to his good friend Lucilius round AD62, the Roman thinker Seneca outlined two arguments for vegetarianism. The primary argument got here from a Roman thinker known as Sextius whom Seneca notably admired, who had lived within the first century BC and had been identified for his easy life-style.
Sextius argued that people can get all of the diet we want from consuming crops. Which means killing animals for meals is completed purely for the pleasure derived from consuming meat. Sextius believed that killing animals for pleasure makes folks develop the behavior of cruelty. Morally talking, folks should not develop the behavior of cruelty, so we should not kill animals only for the pleasure of consuming meat.
This argument is completely different from most trendy arguments for vegetarianism, which often concentrate on animal rights, arguing that animals deserve care or that killing them causes pointless struggling.
The behavior of cruelty argument doesn’t concentrate on the animals in any respect. Moderately it focuses how consuming meat impacts the folks doing the consuming. It warns us that by making cruelty a behavior, consuming meat harms folks’s character.
Even when we theoretically agree you could get all of the diet you want from crops and that individuals morally should not develop the behavior of cruelty, there are nonetheless a few issues with this argument.
You would possibly ask: “who is developing the habit of cruelty?” Most meat eaters should not doing killing the animals they eat themselves. So, arguably, it is these doing the killing which are growing merciless habits. Most of us aren’t these folks, however probably would not need anybody to grow to be merciless due to our personal pleasure-seeking conduct both.
All this relies, nonetheless, on whether or not killing animals for meat does the truth is develop the behavior of cruelty. Definitely, taking pleasure in killing for its personal sake may. However most individuals do not take pleasure in killing animals, solely consuming them.
The transmigration of souls argument
Seneca discusses one other argument, which he discovered from the biographer Sotion, and which went again to Pythagoras (sure, the one with the theory).
Pythagoras believed that every soul handed from one physique to a different after dying. He known as this “transmigration.” So, when your mother or father dies, for instance, their soul would possibly transfer into the physique of an animal. Should you then kill that animal for meals, you’ll have by chance killed your mother or father.
You would possibly reply: “Well I don’t believe in the soul” or “I don’t believe that it passes from one body to another.” Sotion has a counter argument. Even if you happen to do not consider in transmigration, it’s nonetheless attainable that transmigration is true. And if there’s any likelihood in any respect that an animal would possibly home the soul of a cherished one, that likelihood alone ought to be sufficient to make you keep away from consuming meat.
Are you persuaded? It’s attention-grabbing that Sotion argues that you just needn’t settle for transmigration to chorus from consuming meat. You simply have to assume that transmigration is feasible.
However even if you happen to consider in transmigration, I do not personally assume this argument means it’s best to cease consuming meat. Suppose transmigration is true and also you kill the animal that occurs to have your beloved’s soul. Effectively, your beloved is okay—their soul merely strikes to a different physique.
Possibly if you happen to assume that every soul solely will get a restricted variety of lives, you would possibly fear that by ending the animal’s life you destroy the soul of your mother or father. However this will depend on the model of transmigration you consider in.
Even when it fails, there’s something compelling behind the transmigration argument. The thought behind Pythagoras’ transmigration view is that people and animals are alike. If a human soul can enter an animal physique, people and animals should be very comparable sorts of creature. And if animals actually are like us, why are we ready to kill animals for meals, however not different people?
Vegetarianism wasn’t widespread within the historic world. Nevertheless it did have some adherents, typically from spiritual sects, such because the Pythagoreans. However consuming meat was related to spiritual observance too and there was a complicated debate between philosophers about consuming animals.
We all know this from Porphry’s book-length protection of moral vegetarianism On Abstinence from Animal Meals (third century AD), which is a superb place to search out out extra about historic arguments for vegetarianism.
Offered by
The Dialog
This text is republished from The Dialog beneath a Inventive Commons license. Learn the unique article.
Quotation:
What historic Greek and Roman philosophers thought of vegetarianism (2024, November 28)
retrieved 29 November 2024
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2024-11-ancient-greek-roman-philosophers-thought.html
This doc is topic to copyright. Aside from any honest dealing for the aim of personal examine or analysis, no
half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is offered for info functions solely.
