Teemu Toppinen is docent of practical philosophy at the University of Helsinki. He specializes in metanormative theory: very roughly, on his view, having thoughts about oughts or value is just a matter of having certain kinds of sentiments or desires, but this is wholly compatible with there being objective truths about what is valuable, or about how we ought to act. While he’s not very knowledgeable about what these truths are, he finds it important that we’d collectively keep on trying to figure that out. Toppinen’s work has been published in a number of philosophical journals (e.g.,Oxford Studies in Metaethics, The Philosophical Quarterly). He also leads, at the University of Helsinki, a project on the possibility, nature, and practical implications of expertisein ethical matters.
Why Be Veganish (Even if Your Choice May not Make Much of a Difference)
The sea level is rising; there’s increased drought, famine, risk of war, and insecurity on the horizon. A mass extinction of wildlife is underway – indeed, we may be collectively steering toward the extinction of our own species, too. Be that all as it may, animals of certain other species are being submitted to suffering and death on a massive scale at the hands of the animal product industry. On the whole, then, co-operating with this industry – e.g., through shopping for, and eating, factory-farmed meat – seems to do a lot of harm. Obviously, eating meat is bad for the creatures that end up on our plates. But meat consumption also has a tremendous environmental impact on the planet, using the vast majority of farmland and producing a big chunk of our greenhouse gas emissions. That’s all fairly depressing. Moreover, it’s rather paralyzing to consider that your personal choices are very unlikely to make much of a difference. Buy the dead chicken or don’t – that’s not going to have much impact on the amount of chicken suffering. Perhaps some would be inclined to find this comforting, in a way: granting that we’re collectivelywreaking havoc, it doesn’t straightforwardly follow that we – you and me – are doing anything wrong, individually. I will suggest, though, that you and I (or I plus the non-vegans among you) should nevertheless drop the meat and the dairy, on the assumption that this would be feasible (e.g., affordable and healthy enough) for us. This, very briefly, for the following reasons: First, even if our choices are very unlikely to make much of a difference, there is a tiny chance that they make a huge difference; second, even if it’s super unlikely that our dietary choices would make any significant difference to, say, the amount of death caused by the animal product industry, the very fact that they couldeasilymake such a difference – it’s completely random whether they do – may be relevant in itself; third, we perhaps shouldn’t, in any case, be complicitin collective harm-doing; and fourth, even if we’re not completely certain that we are acting wrongly in consuming factory-farmed meat and dairy products, we should plausibly play safe, morally speaking, and choose the vegan (or at least veganish) option which seems very likely to be ethically OK.
Conférence, 20 min
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