PHIL 101 Week 13 APPLIED ETHICS/POLITICS: (22 December

2022)

How to use philosophy in everyday issues? (The Moral Arguments

for and against Vegetarianism and the Myth of Meritocracy)

In the past 3 weeks we have focused on the critique of civilization

(Rousseau), critique of capitalism (Marx), some cases of structural
violence, in particular, how race oppression, class exploitation and
women’s oppression are interrelated historically (Mies), why humans are
not “a kingdom within a kingdom” as they believe (Spinoza’s critique of
free will and transcendent God), which leads towards a concern for the
quality of relations we have with each other and other species.

Now in this last week we will consider the vegetarian critique of

speciesism/ anthropocentricism and how the discourse of meritocracy
rationalizes class oppression and economic inequalities. These issues are
among central topics in “critical theory” which focus on forms of
oppression and ways to achieve liberation and global justice, linking
ethics and politics. There is a second reason why I have chosen to
discuss veganism in our last week. I think that philosophizing is not
merely learning the arguments of the most important philosophers, it is
more than anything, the pursuit of wisdom. Philosophy as a way of life
tries to explore inconsistencies among one’s beliefs and strives to achieve
personal integrity. (After watching the documentary Cowspiracy two
years ago, I have decided that choosing to be a vegan is morally right for
me. But because it is very hard to change my habits and tastes,
unfortunately, I still eat meat once a week and consume dairy products
sometimes. This is the most important conflict between theory and
practice I have, and hopefully one day soon, I will become a vegan. I
wanted you to think about this issue for yourselves too.

DISCUSS: Let us think about the boundaries between the private and
public spheres. According to John Stuart Mill, private sphere includes
everything that concerns only ourselves and public sphere includes those
issues where our actions have consequences that effect the wellbeing of

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others. Do you think our food choices is completely a part of the private
sphere? Why/ Why not?

James Rachels, “Moral Argument for Vegetarianism”

Please watch the following two videos (the first is 9 minutes and the
second 14 minutes)

Kurzgesagt, “Why meat is the best worst thing in the world”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxvQPzrg2Wg

Nevşin Mengü, “Bu ne vahşi medeniyet”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3bwmr3dp8

Basic Arguments Against Vegetarianism:

1. Common sense/Religions/ Kant:

Humans have a dignity (because they have a soul, because they are
created in God’s image/because they have free will and rationality and
self-consciousness) so they are unique/ irreplaceable. But animals are
“inferior” creatures which are merely biological organisms, they don’t
have dignity, they just have a price. This is why we have moral duties only
towards other humans. We can treat animals as we wish...

For Kant, Categorical Imperative only applies in our interactions with

humans.

BUT still common sense, religion and Kant advices us not to treat “some
animals” badly (cats, dogs, horses) since they are our pets and creating
them cruelly would hurt our feelings…

DISCUSS: Kant says: «the one who is cruel to animals becomes hard also
in his dealings with men» (p.691) Do you agree with him? Does eating
meat imply being cruel to animals? Why?/Why not?

2. Humans are omnivores. So, they have to eat meat and dairy
products for a healthy diet. Since meat is essential for having
enough protein, we must eat enough meat. Hence, it is impossible

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 for us to have a moral obligation that would conflict with our being
healthy.

DISCUSS: Evaluate the following argument, first by adding the implicit

premises to make it a valid (geçerli) argument and then by discussing
whether the argument is “sound” (sağlam) or not. “If doing x is necessary
for a person to be healthy, then she cannot have a moral duty not to do
x.” Remark: In a valid argument, the conclusion logically follows from the
premises (i.e. it is impossible for the premises to be true and the
conclusion to be false).

E.g. Premise 1: A is B,

Premise 2: B is C

Conclusion: A is C

A “sound argument” is valid and all its premises are true.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN ANIMAL KINDS (in terms of our moral

obligations to them):

Is it consistent to apply different criteria to (sheep, cows, chicken)

and cats, dogs? Is it not morally wrong for us to kill and eat all of these
species?

Is this only cultural? Chinese are used to eating cats and we are used to
eating cows. Since it is our tradition, it is morally ok? If a culture eats
dead humans, would this be morally permissible too?

Discuss: Can one consistently argue that killing cows for food is morally
permissible but it is morally wrong to kill cats and dogs for food? Since
both cows and dogs are mammals and both are domesticated animals
what difference does it make?

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Is it not morally wrong for us to raise them in terrible cages, shorten their
lifespans, inject them with antibiotics, and raise them in order to kill them
as soon as possible? (Is this torture really necessary for us to have
proteins and a healthy diet??)

For further: https://www.iamgoingvegan.com/arguments-against-

veganism-debunked/

DISTINCTION BETWEEN HISTORICAL CONTEXTS: Hunter-

gatherers, agriculture, industrial society (Is it possible to have contextual
ethics?)

Discuss: Compare the following three cases in terms of whether they are
morally right or wrong:

A: Hunter-gatherer tribes hunted animals.

B: In villages, people raise sheep, cows, chicken and they eat them.

C: Industrial meat production enables everyone to consume animal

products, which is the main content in restaurants and supermarkets.

Can it be consistently argued that consuming meat in the context of A is

morally right, for B it is morally permissible but for C it is morally wrong.
How? Either develop this argument or challenge it and give an argument
that either A, B and C are right or all three are wrong and there are no
grey areas.

Discuss: Critically evaluate the following argument: A: “Farm animals

only exist because we bred them for food-so they don’t have rights or
lives without us”.

Discuss: If a person accepts argument A, then to be consistent should he

also accept the claim B: “Breeding of humans in laboratories and using
their parts to make organ transplants is ethically right since we breed
them for this purpose only”.

NATURALNESS OF EATING MEAT??

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 It is «natural» that we have “more empathy” towards mammals
which are close to us (especially dogs, cats) rather than fish and chicken.
Similarly, we feel affection towards our friends and family but mostly feel
indifferent to strangers. But even if we have more moral obligations to
our loved ones, we are still not allowed to violate the rights of strangers.
Hence, how we feel towards specific people and specific animals is not a
good criterion to decide whether they have a moral right to live or not.

DISCUSS: If a person feels no empathy towards animals, then is it

legitimate for him to treat them as disposable objects? What if he feels no
empathy towards most people too? Would the same conclusion follow?

DISCUSS: If something is natural does it imply that it is morally good?

Discuss by giving examples and apply it to the case of humans being
omnivores. See. Appeal to nature fallacy.

DISCUSS: Critically evaluate the following claim: “Humans are at the top
of the food chain so they can eat animals” (If we CAN kill them, then
SHOULD we kill them, if this is “useful” for us?)

First Argument for Veganism: Reducing Suffering in the World

It is wrong to cause «unnecessary suffering».

• Horrible torturing of civet cats (heating them to death in cages) to

produce musk to make perfumes last longer surely fits this
definition.
• ((Mis gibi kokmak nereden geliyor? Önce geyiklerden elde
ediliyordu şimdi yaban kedilerinden…
https://wannart.com/icerik/24183-mis-nereden-geliyor
DISCUSS: Would killing animals to eat them be morally right if we could
kill them as painlessly as possible?

It is still insufficient because meat industry cannot use humane methods

to make cheap meat available for all. If all meat is produced in a
“humane” way, then it would be too expensive, only consumed by the rich.
Hence, most of us should be vegetarians. » (Rachels, p. 693)

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DISCUSS: What does “unnecessary” suffering mean? If I like the taste of
meat very much and it has proteins which is useful for my health, do
these make it “necessary” or permissible to eat meat?

Second Argument for Veganism: Right to Life

Animals have a right to life which should not be violated.

Rachels distinguishes between Being alive (biological) vs. Having a life
(biographical).

E.g. A person in an irreversible coma is alive, but does not have a life.

A woman says: «My son died at the age of 34 after having lived for 28
years» (p. 694)

This could justify a hierarchy: Human life---monkey---fish----plants (p. 693)

DISCUSS: Do you think this is a strong argument that would justify us to

kill sheep but not cats?

“If I don’t eat meat, others will eat and nothing would change” is a flawed
argument both because it includes a false implicit assumption (can you
find it?) and also because it is not valid, since the more vegetarians in the
world, the smaller would be the meat industry and the less cruelty would
be towards sheep, cows, pigs, chicken and more investments would be
made on producing artificial meat in laboratories.

Would you also say in 1820s, «If I don’t buy slaves, somebody else will»?

E.g. Thoreau’s words on slavery, the least we can do to wash off our
hands of participating in unjust practices is not to practice immoral
actions ourselves. (The same argument can be applied to conscientious
objection/vicdani retçilik too, as it was during the Vietnam War, which
actually helped to stop the war.)

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Third Argument for Veganism: Terrible Effects on the Environment
(Absent in Rachels article)
Meat industry is the third main reason for global warming, carbon
emissions and deforestation.

Please (in the holiday) watch the documentary: Cowspiracy (2014) on

Netflix.

As I had said in the beginning, this documentary was the last drop in
changing my mind. The best thing we can do to protect the environment
is being vegetarian (or better a vegan).

**** Did you know that the amount of water used to

produce a hamburger meatball is equivalent to opening
the shower for a week (2393 litres)? ****

• https://www.cowspiracy.com/facts
• https://thevegandatabase.com/10-antivegan-logical-fallacies /

For the negative effects of eating meat, sugar and processed food on
human health, What the Health (2017) documentary was also excellent.

SECOND ARTICLE FOR THIS WEEK: Myth of Meritocracy

Kwami Anthony Appiah- “The Red Baron”

Recommended Video: Philosophy Tube- Charles Darwin vs. Karl Marx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfYvLlbXj_8

How the above video raises questions which are relevant to this week’s
theme?

Question 1: Does Darwin’s evolutionary theory support that since humans

are complex animals, we are also subject to the laws of nature (i.e. the
struggle for survival)?

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Question 2: If evolution is based on “natural selection” and “survival of
the fittest”, then should this be applied for humans too?

Question 3: Is it “rational” to conclude that the “winners” have a right to

live (well) and the “losers” should be sacrificed/not helped (since they
don’t deserve to survive/live well)?

If your answer to all three questions is “Yes”, then you might have
tendencies for “Social Darwinism”. The most radical versions of Social
Darwinists defended eugenics: Perfection of the race by getting rid of the
“undesirables” and multiplication of the “desirables”, just like selective
breeding of horses and cows!

The most well-known application of this principle was by the Nazis

against the Jews, disabled and the socialists. It was also applied in UK,
Australia, colonies of Germany, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Korea and China,
in the name of “improving society”, mainly through forced sterilizations of
indigenous populations. It was most popular between 1880 and 1960s,
but even in a famous book “The Bell Curve” published in 1994, the
authors argued that immigrations from countries with low “national IQs”
should be restricted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_eugenics

If you have any doubts whether people with disabilities should be

“eliminated” for the “health of society”, or if you have any doubts whether
you might have “ableist prejudices”, then I would recommend the
following brilliant documentary, Crip Camp (2020) from Netflix.

Is this move from Darwinism to Social Darwinism and eugenics, a

slippery slope that can be prevented at some point? How?

Let’s first discuss Question 1, which seem to be the most “innocent”

among three. Have you noticed that in Question 1, I have written “laws of
nature i.e. the struggle for survival”, do you find this equation
problematic?

The source of Darwin’s idea of “struggle for survival” was Thomas

Malthus (who believed that since our ability to breed is always more than

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our ability to produce food, i.e. population increases more than food
supplies, mass poverty is inevitable. Hence for Malthus, the
“overpopulation problem” should be solved by governments by not
helping the poor (lowering their birth rates and permitting their
death rates to be higher). Today Malthus’ ideas are embraced by those
who blame “overpopulation” for climate change and environmental
destruction, whose famous slogan during Covid times is “humans are the
virus”. For a good criticism of this latest form of misanthropy, see.
https://gizmodo.com/what-the-humans-are-the-virus-meme-gets-so-wrong-
1842934676

However, today with increased technology, we have

overproduction, so the problem is not overpopulation, since there are
enough resources to satisfy the basic needs of all people. But rather it is
due to what Marx called as “the main contradiction of capitalism” (mass
poverty despite abundance due to increasing economic inequalities).

As Philosophy Tube video says rich families with fewer members

consume more resources that the poor, crowded families. “Malthus’
doctrines are still useful to explain away the disasters of the wealthy as
the biological and moral defaults of the poor.” (Eleanor Penny- “We are
not the virus”)

For example, in 2021, Jeff Bezos has spent 5.5 billion dollars to be
in space just for 4 minutes. With this money, 37.5 million people could
have been saved from starving!!!

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/jeff-bezos-space-flight-money-
better-uses/

DISCUSS: Should anyone have a moral right to do something (e.g space

tourism) that would harm the ozone layer more? Why? /Why not?

Plus, Malthus and Herbert Spencer (the founder of Social

Darwinism) assume that things will get better if laissez-faire determines
winners vs. losers and if governments do not interfere. However, in
evolutionary theory, just because a mutation is beneficial does not mean

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that it is going to happen. Hence, we cannot conclude that capitalism (as
the latest stage in history) is the best one, since it has survived and
socialism has not.

Secondly, their argument resembles a self-fulfilling prophesy. In the

neoliberal phase of capitalism, the dismantling of safety nets has
increased competition, thereby decreased wages of most workers and
created more poverty and more competition. Even though these course of
events is a consequence of capitalism, they present is as evidence for
competitive human nature, using the fallacy of circular reasoning,
assuming what they are trying to explain.

Appeal to nature fallacy: If x is natural then x is good. i.e. it is good

because it is natural.

Counterexamples:

- Viruses are natural but not good for human health.

- Eating meat is natural but not good, since meat industry is one of
the top reasons for environmental destruction and global warming.
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/why-meat-is-bad-for-the-
environment/

Kropotkin argued that the “fittest” does not necessarily mean the
strongest or the cleverest. Even in many animal species mutual
cooperation is more important for survival than competition.

Lastly, we come to question 3: “Is it “rational” to conclude that the

“winners” have a right to live (well) and the “losers” should be
sacrificed/not helped (since they don’t deserve to survive/live well)?” This
question brings us to the heart of meritocracy (liyakat).

DISCUSS: Evaluate the following argument. Is it valid (does the

conclusion follow from the premises, or are there other hidden premises)?
Is it sound (are all the premises true?)

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Premise 1: If the governments support the “losers” (the poor), since they
tend to breed more than others, soon they will form the majority of the
world population.

Premise 2: Humans have infinite desires but the resources are limited.

Premise 3: More humans mean more consumption of scarce resources.

Conclusion: The reduction of population is necessary both to solve

ecological problems and also to reduce mass poverty.

Kwame Anthony Appiah (2018), “The Red Baron”

MERITOCRACY: A political system in which the distribution of wealth,

power and social status is made according to individual talents, efforts
and achievements.

The ideal of meritocracy is based on very good intentions, related

with the establishment of “equality of opportunities” and in contrast with
nepotism (kayırmacılık). For example, jobs should go to people who are
“best qualified for them”, eliminating all discriminations based on
people’s race, gender or class. (What about positive
discrimination/affirmative action??)

Examples:

- Plato’s Republic (philosopher kings, guardians, producers with

different functions, rights and responsibilities),
- John Stuart Mill (educated people should give double votes),
- The American Dream (Every individual should be self-reliant,
responsible for the outcome of his performance: Are you lazy or
ambitious? Those who are lazy become poor and the hardworking
become rich.)
DISCUSS: Is success a good indicator of personal effort and
performance? Why?/ Why not?

DISCUSS: What constitutes merit? How to measure it?

Michael Young’s definition of MERIT: IQ plus effort.

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Preconditions of meritocracy are impartial competition and equality of
opportunities.

DISCUSS: Can there be equality of opportunity in a society where there

the gap between rich and poor is very wide?

Please watch this following 4-minute video:

Equal opportunity? Different starting lines?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJAgPF5FNTQ

How did meritocracy as a utopia actually turned into a dystopia?

In Young’s satirical dystopian book Rise of Meritocracy, a historian in

2033 looks back at Britain, which was ruled by the cleverest elites, rather
than by democracy, society was divided into two main classes who think
they deserve their social status.

In the book, he was criticising the British education system which

divided children into three groups based on their performance, and was
obsessed with quantifying their merits through test scores. Since merit of
children was measured with test scores, parents used their money so that
their children would gain “unfair advantages” by taking private lessons
from best teachers, etc.

In USA (1980-2013) most students going to Ivy League universities

were the children of the richest segments. Hence, “transmission of wealth
and privilege across generations…What should have been mechanisms of
mobility had become fortresses of privilege”

One of the reasons Trump won was based on the resentment of the
middle class who felt vulnerable, “Populists think that liberal elites look
down on ordinary Americans, ignore their concerns and use their power
to their own advantage.” This led to the rise of sexism, racism, anti-
intellectualism, since they (especially people in the Rust Belt) believed
women, blacks, intellectuals were getting unfair advantages, while they
were losing their jobs since most factories moved to China, etc.

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 “Young believed the problem wasn’t just with how the prizes of
social life were distributed; it was with the prizes themselves… a
hierarchy of social respect, granting dignity to those at the top, but
denying respect and self-respect to those who did not inherit the talents
and the capacity for effort…authors of his fictional Chelsea Manifesto …
ask for a society that both possessed and acted upon plural values,
including kindliness, courage and sensitivity, so all had the chance to
develop his own special capacities for leading a rich life.”

For a brilliant critique of the pitfalls of meritocracy, I recommend the

series %3 (2016) from Netflix.

Hence, the alternative to meritocracy is the commitment to social

equality. Young said “What matters in the end is not how we rank
against others… what matters is simply that we do our best” Human
worth should replace the concerns for efficiency. “Institutional desert
has nothing to do with the intrinsic worthiness of the people who
get into college or who get the jobs, any more than lottery winners
are people of special merit and losers are somehow less worthy…
The capacity for hard work is itself the result of natural
endowments and upbringing. So neither talent, nor effort, the two
things that would determine rewards in the world of meritocracy,
is itself something earned…. The lives of the less successful are not
less worthy than those of others…There is simply no sensible way of
comparing the worth of human lives.” [For more, please watch Episode 3
of Michael Sandel’s lectures on Justice, on that particular issue and a
brilliant critique of cost-benefit analysis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Qw4l1w0rkjs&list=PL30C13C91CFFEFEA6&index=3 ]

Remark: Young is not against appointing individuals to jobs on the basis

of merit “but class identities don’t have to internalize those injuries of
class…we have to revise the ways we think about human worth in the
service of moral equality.”

Kenneth Tan criticises meritocracy as follows: "Meritocracy, in

trying to 'isolate' merit by treating people with fundamentally unequal
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backgrounds as superficially the same, can be a practice that ignores and
even conceals the real advantages and disadvantages that are unevenly
distributed to different segments of an inherently unequal society, a
practice that in fact perpetuates this fundamental inequality. In this way,
those who are picked by meritocracy as having merit may already have
enjoyed unfair advantages from the very beginning, ignored according to
the principle of non-discrimination."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy

Furthermore, Daniel Markovits in his book “Meritocracy Trap”

(2019) argues that rising inequalities is a result of meritocracy. These
rising inequalities also supress social mobility. Meritocracy causes a
continuous “competitive trap” and it harms middle classes more than
others, leading to a great increase in “deaths of despair” and “opioid
epidemic”. “In a mature meritocracy, schools and jobs dominate elite life
so immersively that they leave no self apart from status. In short, elites
are shuttled into a life-long, endless competition that not only consumes
their life quantitatively but qualitatively as well, leaving no room for self-
expression, actualization, or discovery — only self-exploitation, value
extraction, and endless anxiety.”

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/10/24/20919030/
meritocracy-book-daniel-markovits-inequality-rich

Meritocracy is criticised harshly even by a well-known Harvard professor,

Michael Sandel (who had challenged the president Reagan to debate with
him when he was just 18, and they actually debated!), in his book The
“Tyranny of Merit” (2020).

“Put another way, why focus on and blame the individual when clearly it
is society that is at fault. For me, and most sociologists I suspect, the
implications are clear. If you want to grow healthy, well adjusted “good”
individuals, meet all their needs. It’s just like growing a flower. If you
stunt the flower by failing to water it properly or by planting it in shitty
soil, it’s not the flower’s fault if it grows up weak and spindly, it’s the

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gardener’s fault. It just doesn’t make any sense to blame the individual
plant.” https://dr-s.medium.com/abraham-maslow-was-a-eugenicist-
b3ba9a85f5ab

Is too much population the reason for climate crisis and poverty?

See. Anne Hendrixson (2015), “Greening Malthtus”,

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/family-planning-environment-
capitalism

On the issue of how the “structurally imposed necessity of competition”

leads to alienation, anxiety and mental problems, here are three
suggestions in Turkish (iki köşe yazısı ve bir kitap):

https://www.birgun.net/haber/umutsuzluk-olumleri-384628

https://www.birgun.net/haber/yavas-yavas-384928

Johann Hari (2019), Kaybolan Bağlar: Depresyonun Gerçek Nedenleri ve

Beklenmedik Çözümler.

Bundan sonra başka bir derste buluşmak üzere… Felsefeyle bağını

geliştirmek isteyenlere önerim iz sürmeye devam etmeniz ve
sorularınızın/meraklarınızın yıllar içinde nasıl dönüştüğünü görebilmek için
bir felsefi sorular defteri tutmanız.

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