Free Social Development Essay Sample

Throughout history, societies have thrived in environments where humans have been able to fully utilize resources such as food, water, and building materials to sustain large populations. In ancient times, before agriculture was developed, humans depended on hunter-gatherer societies to feed their tribes. In this prehistoric society, males would hunt animals in groups while females would forage for vegetation. Thousands of years later, the Industrial Revolution has made it possible for humans to refrain from hunting and primitive agricultural practices. With a larger production yield, the capacity to sustain a growing population is enhanced and the standard of living increases as emphasis is deviated from the agricultural sector towards the development of innovations and technology that benefit the masses other than feeding them.  Food is crucial in order for society to function, but due to the virtuous nature of humans some may concede parts of their diet such as meat, fish, and dairy products.  As society  has developed, emphasis on survival is reduced as humans have achieved supremacy in the food chain, allowing the elimination of meat in their diets to be possible. There are a plethora of reasons why people choose to do this, such as religion and morals. The murder of animals is perceived by some to be highly unethical and consequently should be banned. However, eliminating the consumption of meat can be extremely detrimental to society, with issues on sustainability and freedom of choice. Hence, it can be ethical to eat meat when the treatment of domestic livestock prior to slaughter is humane.

Granted, slaughter of any lifeform is socially condemned in one way or another. Humans have reigned supreme on Earth for centuries due to traits that differentiate them from other animals. One such trait is compassion, which allows humans to care for one another and prioritizing the welfare of the group rather than the individual. As humans’ social adroitness advance, they develop compassion towards other forms of life such as creating bonds with animals and keeping them as pets. The social norm of treating animals as sentient beings is prevalent in today’s society, especially in America. The website of the   Human Research Council, the self acclaimed most comprehensive resource for public opinion regarding behavior research about animal welfare, albeit not explicitly providing any sort of credibility, conducted a survey pertaining to vegetarianism in the United States. When asked why people choose to refrain from eating meat, the most popular primary reason was to “reduce suffering of animals on farms”(Human Resource Council).  The mass production and consumption of meat has also been detrimental to the environment due its destructive tendency as, “30% of the earth’s land surface is used for livestock farming [which would contribute] to land and water degradation, biodiversity loss, acid rain, coral reef degradation and deforestation”. For these reasons, people believe that promoting the consumption of meat would incentivize unethical practices from killing animals to destroying ecosystems and consequently must be banned.

However, most of these problems arise from the growing demand for food as populations increase exponentially. Regarding the same study by the  Human Research Council, the average American consumes “270.7 pounds [of meat] a year”(Human Research Council). Eliminating a large portion of the average American’s diet without a sustainable alternative is extremely problematic. Nonetheless,  radically changing the mode of production and consumption to a vegetarian based one will not do much to ameliorate the situation for animals. Barbara Kingsolver, award-winning novelist and essayist, mostly writes about fiction pertaining to nature related issues. In an excerpt from her publication,  Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which is an account of her family’s endeavor to eat locally grown food which may entail a bias against mass production, she exposes the hypocrisy of ignorant moralists who discern the ethicality of eating meat as a false dichotomy. She presumes that “it’s the animals to which we’ve assigned some rights, while the saintly plants we maim and behead with moral impunity. Who thinks to beg forgiveness while mowing the lawn?”(Kingsolver). Kingsolver points out that the aforementioned people ignore other factors relevant to the debate which are crucial in order to achieve a nuanced understanding of the issue. One such issue is that regardless of vegetable or meat production, animals will inevitably get killed in large quantities. She provides a plethora of examples when she mentions, “an estimated 67 million birds die each year from pesticide exposure on U.S farms [and] butterflies are universally killed on contact in larval form by the genetically modified pollen contained in most U.S corn.”(Kingsolver).

In addition to the broader issues of society affected by this moral dilemma,  the choice whether or not to eat meat must be made by the individual. If moralists believe that people have the freedom to become vegetarians, the same should apply to people who choose to eat meat.  Wendell Berry, an author for the Center of EcoLiteracy, is also an environmentalist who may hold a bias in favor of the environment. In his essay, “The Pleasures Of Eating” written in 1990, Berry asserts that the topic of food is political and “involves our freedom [and] we cannot be free if our minds and voices are controlled by someone else. The condition of the passive consumer of food is not a democratic condition. One reason to eat responsibly is to live free”(Berry).  Berry puts heavy emphasis on freedom of choice as it is what allows individuals to have the ability to think for themselves as opposed to having a single entity deprive them of their identity.

Though the ethicality of consuming meat can be considered unjustifiable by some, it’s still considered as a human right for people to choose what goes into their diets. The consumption of meat is ubiquitous to society and can’t simply be eradicated as the conditions necessary for a more humane form of providing food are not yet met.  Meat is a common household food and to deprive people from accessing it, especially in America which claims to uphold freedom of choice, can be extremely problematic and cause social disorder. History has accentuated the importance of food, especially meat, to society. But it’s undeniable that humans have a moral obligation to be compassionate towards other life forms as they are the dominant species in the food chain. The slaughter of animals may seem barbaric but is necessary to feed the populace. The least humans can do to fulfill this social contract is to ameliorate the living conditions of livestock prior to slaughter. A perfect world in which death can be fully prevented can’t be achieved, but a better one where suffering is alleviated is possible.