It is not as simple as stating that eating meat is ‘bad’ or ‘good’

No diet is virtuous or vicious

In Part 1, I introduced the idea that one could use Stoic principles to decide whether a plant-based diet, or at least a less meat-heavy diet, was an appropriate action. My main point was that there is no vicious or virtuous particular diet per se.

It is anti-Stoic to rank diets

In Part 2, I want to highlight that it would be anti-Stoic to rigidly rank diets from great to terrible.

After all, and within reason, what would be ‘great’ for someone would be ‘terrible’ for others. For example, while nuts are largely seen as healthy fibrous sources of nutrition, people with nut allergies would die from eating them!

In the same way, and if we consider the Stoic virtue of self-control, we know that eating excessively (greedily) is a vicious action. However, it is not Stoic to decide that everyone should eat no more than 2,500 kcals per day. Some people are less active and need less food while others partake in extreme sports or undertake heavy labouring jobs and need more. In short, there is no perfectly virtuous Stoic diet for everyone everywhere. However, diet is not just about what we choose to eat (and how much) but also how we choose to produce it, as Musonius Rufus makes clear:

The earth repays most beautifully and justly those who care for her, giving back many times what she receives… Only someone decadent or soft would say that agricultural tasks are shameful or unsuitable for a good man… To me, this is the main benefit of all agricultural tasks: they provide abundant leisure for the soul to do some deep thinking and to reflect on the nature of education – Musonius Rufus, Discourses Lecture 11, 1-3 (as translated by King, 2010) .

Musonius obviously believes that farming in a careful, considerate, and conscientious way is beneficial to the soul. It is thus difficult to reconcile aggressive farming practices, which involve the mass slaughter of uncared-for animals with the “deep thinking” and the nourishing of the soul that Rufus promotes.

Furthermore, the common practice of tearing away a calf from its mother is contrary to ‘oikeiosis’, the process of extending moral consideration to others beyond ourselves.

Avoiding cruelty

Given that oikeiosis is a process we share with other animals, any action that cruelly prevents a calf from developing their own understanding of what it means to be a cow (or bull) and part of their own herd cannot be anything short of vicious (especially as it is so unnecessary).

In this respect, there is considerable weight to an argument in favour of removing meat from our diet, unless we can be certain (based on the facts) that the animals that provided us with meat or milk were cared for and treated appropriately as living beings, as opposed to mere commodities.

Not a simple decision

That said, it is not as simple as stating that eating meat is ‘bad’ or ‘good’. Instead, we must ask a deeper question: Is this animal being raised in a way that I would consider to be appropriate or reasonable?

If the answer is ‘no’, then I would argue that while a particularly meaty dish might nourish your body, it cannot possibly be nourishing your soul. And, in which case, our choice to eat (or abstain from) meat does make the moral difference. Because while we may not be raising animals ourselves, we are indirectly responsible for the way they are treated. After all, we do (for the most part) have control over whether we choose to spend our money on meat that is produced by the kind of farmer that Musonius Rufus would praise, or in their absence choose to forgo meat and milk altogether.

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Kai Whiting is the author of Being Better: Stoicism for a World Worth Living In. He a researcher and lecturer in sustainability and Stoicism based at UCLouvain, Belgium. He Tweets @kaiwhiting and blogs over at StoicKai.com

 

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