Q&A: Eating Meat and the Categorical Imperative
Eating Meat and the Categorical Imperative
Question
Hello Rabbi!
Eating human flesh is not something immoral, all the more so the flesh of an animal. If so, given the fact that it is clear that one person’s refraining from eating meat will not reduce at all the number of animals that suffer and die, is the moral virtue (or moral obligation) of a private individual in refraining from eating meat only because of the categorical imperative (something like your article about voting in elections)?
Answer
How did we get to human flesh?
As for your question, indeed. Mainly the categorical imperative. There may perhaps be room for the claim that if you don’t consume meat your whole life, then one or two animals will be saved, and then there is a direct issue here and not only the imperative. Maybe. I don’t know.
Discussion on Answer
I think that in addition to the categorical imperative, it’s simply a reluctance to support such immoral acts and so on—an unwillingness to take part in them.
Because if there is a moral problem with the very act of eating meat, then there is no need to invoke the categorical imperative. That’s why I prefaced it by saying that presumably, in your view, there is no problem with the eating itself (for example, eating carrion), all the more so from your remarks about eating human flesh, which involves no moral problem.