Does being a moral atheist require being a vegetarian?

Question

A semi-serious question:

(a) Excluding the rare cases of atheists who are also dualists, most atheists are materialists who don't believe in souls.

(b) Many such atheists are also moral/ethical people, in fact they are usually adamant that atheism doesn't imply immorality - they don't need a deity to force them to behave, etc....therefore a moral atheist would consider it immoral to take an innocent life.

Now given (a), from an atheist point of view, there's nothing that privileges human life over other forms of life. A theist might be able to claim, like Descartes did, that only humans have souls, or take some other such human-centric worldview. An atheist on the other hand, has no such grounds for privileging humans over other living beings. The difference between Einstein and an amoeba is merely one of degree, not kind.

So if an atheist holds that (a) there are no souls, and (b) killing is bad - then the only logical course of action for her is to be vegetarian. She can eat plant products, because eating plant products doesn't necessarily require killing the entire plant. But if she is to respect the value of life, she cannot eat any meat since killing a living creature would be unavoidable.

The only other conceivable option is for atheists to become carrion eaters.

Is this reasoning valid? If one claims to be both a materialist atheist and a moral person, then the only choices they have are being vegetarian or eating carrion?

Answer 1

This notion that 'killing is bad', just forwards setting up 'life' as a god. There is no immorality in requesting people to undertake tasks that will doubtless kill them, if they make those choices with all the freedom available to them.

It would be hard to take an objective view of history that was thoroughly pacifist from a logically consistent atheist position. Pacifism between humans in the modern technological world may have value as a means to an end, but a fully pacifist view of all species, and of humans in earlier history would be simply cruel.

A pacifist view that accepted like rights for all species would condemn lions for eating the only things they can reasonably digest, which would go beyond any sense.

But just sticking to humans, it is not reasonable. War has done us a great deal of good in certain ways. Much of our technology was forced on us by the urgency of war. Without it we might be a culture too primitive to become largely atheist.

Returning to the first assertion, compare a cow to a human. Does a cow accept the course of its life with all the freedom available to it? If we let it go, and it did not return, would it be better off? How about if it were never cultivated, so that there were no such thing as cows? Would those nonexistent cows necessarily be better off? Is a cow's life so bad it would be better off never having existed? Can we know, or would we even guess, that what would exist in place of the cow, were there now cows, would be any better off than the cow itself? I would suggest not.

This nets us an obligation to make sure no cows life is that bad, since we have indeed created them. It is only consistent with the obligation we take on ourselves to limit how bad human's (especially children's) lives are likely to be. But it does not net us an obligation to keep them alive or to stop creating them.

So your third premise 'killing is bad' is the problem with your argument.

Answer 2

A semi-serious question:

(a) Excluding the rare cases of atheists who are also dualists, most atheists are materialists who don't believe in souls.

Actually not that rare. Most professional philosophers are physicalists, but not all of them. Dualism isn't just the Cartesian idea of some soul - also called substance dualism - but there's some other forms as well like property dualism.

An atheist on the other hand, has no such grounds for privileging humans over other living beings.

No. Usually people give human life more value then other life because humans are thought of to have more sentience than other life forms.

The difference between Einstein an amoeba is merely one of degree, not kind.

In general yes. Although some viewpoints would draw a line for certain for a life to get moral consideration. There are a few exceptions, but those are much harder to argue for I'd say.

So if an atheist holds that (a) there are no souls, and (b) killing is bad - then the only logical course of action for her is to be vegetarian.

Well, you only need (b) for the conclusion here. But like said, it depends on whether the life in question ought to be given moral consideration. For example, we might not give plants consideration because they haven't got a central nervous system and therefore don't possess the necessary degree of sentience.

Is this reasoning valid? If one claims to be both an materialist atheist and a moral person, then the only choices they have are being vegetarian or eating carrion?

Factoring in premise (b) it's valid.

But (b) isn't completely self-evident. For example, an utilitarian would argue that killing isn't inherently bad, but something like "Suffering without necessary purpose ought to be reduced.". If the situation allows it then that viewpoints can ofc also lead to vegetarianism or veganism. Not necessarily, but it would be a fair and defensible position. Your viewpoint here comes from a different approach of normative ethics - a deontological or a rights-based approach I'd guess. Which are popular and certainly defensible positions too.

So in short it's valid. Whether it's sound depends on your moral framework and can be discussed. Also there are quite different positions which also lead to vegetarianism or veganism.

Answer 3

No, atheism is not a set of ethical rules

The entire reasoning of the question is a bit of a non-sequiteur. You can replace "atheist" with any label of your choice and it remains the same question, and the same answer: no, because the decision to be a vegetarian does depends on one's label/title but one's ethical considerations, and these do not follow from the label/title.

To exemplify:

Does being a moral [plumber/store clerk/marketing account executive] require being a vegetarian?

So if a [plumber/store clerk/marketing account executive] holds that (a) there are no souls, and (b) killing is bad - then the only logical course of action for her is to be vegetarian.

Now it is obvious, that the decision of being a vegetarian does not come from one's label, but from b), which does not follow from the label but is a personal ethical choice.

A-theism does not infer b), atheism is simply is simply the rejection of theism. however you want to define theism, as a belief in a god, or as faith-based doctrine, a-theism is simply the rejection of that. Atheism is a descriptive term, not a prescriptive one; atheism does not provide any do's and don'ts. The only thing atheism says is "We will not use the religiously based edicts as a foundation for any argument in the public discourse".

Which set of ethics you then choose as an atheist, that is entirely up to you. Does that lead to veganism? Not necessarily. You can be an atheist and a nihilist. But you can also be an atheist and hold animal life to the same or nearly the same standard as human life. To quote Christopher Hitchens in God In Not Great, chapter 3 "A Short Digression on the Pig; or, Why Heaven Hates Ham":

The pig is so close to us, and has been so handy to us in so many respects, that a strong case is now made by humanists that it should not be factory-farmed, confined, separated from its young, and forced to live in its own ordure. All other considerations to one side, the resulting pink and spongy meat is somewhat rebarbative. But this is a decision that we can make in the plain light of reason and compassion, as extended to fellow creatures and relatives, and not as a result of incantations from Iron Age campfires where much worse offenses were celebrated in the name of god.

Hence after concluding that he have excluded the religiously inspired arguments from the discourse, whatever kind of premises you then add — "Killing is bad", "Animals do not have the same rights as humans", et cetera — is besides the point, because atheism gives no prescriptions in either direction.

So the answer to your question is:

No, atheism does not prescribe you to be a vegan because atheism prescribes nothing. Atheism only describes the rejection of religiously inspired arguments.

Answer 4

If one is exploring "normal" morality, one can use phrases like "killing is bad" informally. However, when exploring edge cases such as a dualist atheist, one has to be precise with wording or the arguments turn contradictory very quickly.

The assumptions you state are insufficient to reach the assumption that one should become a vegetarian. You are assuming "killing is bad" should be taken to the extreme form, "any preventable death is worse than any possible benefit that could ever come from it." In such a case, you don't need qualifiers such as "atheist" or "moral." All you need is to state that a given person believes such an extreme statement and they will be forced to be a vegetarian (or unable to even eat plants, as the case may be). This is true whether they arrive at this belief through atheistic methods, or if they are given them through divine intervention from a deity.

In general humans, atheist or not, recognize that morals need to be more nuanced than that.

Answer 5

If your postulation is that atheists do not believe in a 'soul', and I might argue with that under other circumstances, then that would put them in the same moral category as other animals, who are also believed by some to have no soul.

In the wild, a cow has natural predators, such as a wolf or a bear. Both subsist, when possible, by killing cows and eating them. In nature, this serves an observable purpose: it keeps the herbivore population in check.

Other apex predators appear to hold to behavior patterns that roughly approximate morality, though this may not be from a sense of morality. They don't kill animals indiscriminately - though that is most likely from the hazards of hunting, where injury while pursuing a large herbivore will probably result in the death of the injured predator. They don't kill unless necessary, to preserve their own life. To them, it's a dangerous business.

Humans and their simian ancestors have been omnivorous for hundreds of thousands of years, so humans eating meat is not a recent event. Native Americans subsisted in part on buffalo meat, and weren't too discriminating about the hunting method - they were known to stampede buffalo herds into running off of a cliff, leaving a good deal of wasted meat, but much less hazardous to the predator.

By the definition of an apex predator, an atheist is not required or obligated to be a vegetarian.

An atheist who held that any killing of any animal is 'wrong' and not for practical reasons (such as remaining uninjured), is getting perilously close to believing in a higher spirit.

Answer 6

So if an atheist holds that (a) there are no souls, and (b) killing is bad - then the only logical course of action for her is to be vegetarian. She can eat plant products, because eating plant products doesn't necessarily require killing the entire plant. But if she is to respect the value of life, she cannot eat any meat since killing a living creature would be unavoidable.

If your atheist vegan drives in the summer, insects (which probably are not “robots”) will find their deaths in her car's grill. And this is not an unforeseeable accident, it is guaranteed to happen. So she “should” (the vague word used in moral realist discourse) not drive.

But as J. L. Mackie noticed amusedly, “anyone who really means business uses ‘must’ [instead of should]”.

Do you think she must not drive with her car in the summer? I doubt it.

So, there is no good way to judge partial compliance. You could also claim that everyone who does not live like a Jain nun or monk (sans celibacy) is not a moral person, but this would border on the absurd.

Is this reasoning valid? If one claims to be both a materialist atheist and a moral person, then the only choices they have are being vegetarian or eating carrion?

Why “if”? Why can carnivorous soul-believers claim to be moral persons?

Do you think that the Aztec priests were moral people because it followed from their religion that human sacrifices were good, pious acts?

Well, if you're already so deep into moral relativism, some inconsistency is the least you should worry about.

---

@Marc H.

She must not drive if and only if insects are sentient enough to receive moral consideration. The link is an indication that it shouldn't be dismissed. As Singer argues, with vertebrate animals we can be sure that they can suffer.

Why not give insects the benefit of the doubt?

One could also argue that she can't avoid driving, but can avoid eating meat, and add that "Ought implies can".

Many people don't have a driver's license or a car and they still manage to live their life. Also, much driving is connected to definitely non-essential purposes like leisure.

But even if we dismiss the driving argument, we can quickly construct another:

In modern plant agriculture, there is no way to avoid killing vertebrates like mice, lizards, snakes, rabbits, etc., this is caused unintentionally by ploughing and harvesting and intentionally by vertebrate pest control.

Since human survival depends on plant agriculture, we “can't” just stop doing it.

But... this doesn't excuse that most vegans do not live by a principle of truly “maximal harm avoidance”. Let's say:

• Alice eats a rich omnivore diet. She especially loves steaks, burgers and curry chicken.
• Betty eats a rich vegan diet. She likes tofu-vegetable lasagna, vegan pasta, vegan pizza, vegan sweets, etc. and also drinks coffee.
• Carol uses a vegan diet that causes the least animal suffering and provides her with enough calories and essential nutrients. This means Carol exclusively
  • eats bland dishes made of a small variety of highly efficient crops with minimal impact on animals
  • takes mineral/vitamin-supplements
  • drinks water.

Betty obviously causes massively less animal deaths and suffering than Alice, but Carol still causes noticeably less animal deaths and suffering than Betty.

“Ought” we to live like Carol? And if we don't because we just can't be bothered to, what then? Do we stop to be a moral person? Is Betty immoral? And if she isn't, why isn't Alice, too? Don't you think that Alice, Betty and Carol are all pretty far removed from a person which we judge to be truly immoral like an unrepentant murderer?

Answer 7

I'm not sure that all atheists don't believe in the soul. I think a lot might depend on a) the atheist b) the atheist's cultural surroundings c) the way in which we define "soul" Plenty of people atheistic and theistic define soul mainly as human rationality or freedom of choice. You can be an atheist and believe in these things as real things which impact behavior and are part of human nature. You can even be an atheist and believe in some other definition of soul naturalistic or not. There is a lot to disentangle here, but the way in which "soul" is defined is not the same from culture to culture, or religion to religion. Even without the concept, most people recognize that human life has some distinctiveness to animal life even without necessarily theorizing or verbalizing about it. So I don't think an atheist has to be a vegetarian to be consistent in his beliefs (also remember that some meat-eating can be important for nutritional reasons, especially in areas in which it is hard to find protein-rich or nutritious food).

Answer 8

Being an atheist removes the justification for treating humans as privileged by a deity.

The position re: vegetarianism is even clearer for humanists. They are committed to evidence and reason and grant moral consideration to humans. In some formulations, this moral consideration is also extended to sentient animals e.g. https://humanists.international/what-is-humanism/.

If sentience is the characteristic that warrants moral consideration, a logical consequence has to be veganism. Dairy production causes significant suffering + death, so vegetarianism doesn't go quite far enough.

Humanists disagree on whether sentient animals warrant moral consideration and to what degree. Sentientism (see Singer / Ryder) makes this explicit and also acknowledges that sentient AI and even aliens would warrant moral consideration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentientism.

Answer 9

therefore a moral atheist would consider it immoral to take an innocent life.

This is where you run off the rails. You will then have to explain away all the positions that seem to conflict with this as either not being atheistic or not being moral. Here are just a few that seem to conflict and that can't be explained away:

1. An atheist who believes that it is moral agency (that is, the ability to make moral decisions) that entitles a living thing to its own rights. Otherwise, it is not immoral to kill living things.

2. An atheist who believes any right not to be killed would have to come from some kind of implied contract not to kill in return and then a lack of evidence of such a contract would render killing someone permissible. Alice can't kill Bob because Bob has implicitly agreed not to kill Alice or anyone else. Hence it's not mere innocence that entitles one not to be killed but affirmative benevolence. Animals don't have any such benevolence and will kill us if it's to their advantage. There's no evidence animals have agreed not to kill humans, hence no reason for humans to agree not to kill animals.

3. An atheist who believes that they directly perceive that murdering humans is wrong and that they do not directly perceive that killing other animals is wrong. They explain that they do not know precisely how they know this is true other than to explain that they perceive it directly, much as a person who does not understand how color vision works still knows that some apples are red and some are green though they can't explain exactly how they know this. They will point out that arguing to them that killing animals is as wrong as killing humans is like arguing that two apples that they plainly see are different colors are the same color. Without a scientific understanding of color, they can't prove the apples are different colors, but nevertheless they will not deny what they perceive directly.

4. An atheist who believes that morality is purely a matter of universal practical advantage. They accept that they can't make moral rules like "I can kill and you can't". So moral rules must be reasonably universal. A moral rule that humans may kill each other does not benefit him, so he won't accept such a rule. But a moral rule that humans can kill animals benefits him, so he will accept such a rule.

So are all of these people not moral? Are any of these positions incompatible with atheism?

Answer 10

I think there are multiple questions here, namely, a) the moral and spiritual status of animals b) do animals have free will (closely linked to a) c) what form of consciousness do animals possess and how is it similar and how is it different to our own d) the ethics of vegetarianism e) the permissibility of meat eating within either a religious or secular values system f) ethics of food and agriculture g) our responsibility to the environment and how those obligations are articulated h) how can we as humans living in the present possess obligations towards humans yet to be born i) the ethics of environmental consciousness

I would argue that being a moral atheist does not require being a vegetarian since meat eating is a health necessity for some people. But clearly there are multiple overlapping and interrelated ethical and philosophical concerns here.

Answer 11

... a moral atheist would consider it immoral to take an innocent life.

How does it follow from this that :

... killing is bad in such a way that killing a plant or an animal for food is bad ?

You need the missing premise that plant and animal life is innocent. Since neither plants nor animals are moral agents, they lack moral responsibility and can therefore be neither innocent nor guilty nor evil.

Sympathy for suffering and the moral obligation to avoid unnecessary killing prompt me towards veganism but I find the innocence of plants and animals conceptually hard to take. And I don't think the moral defence of veganism needs it. So we arrive at the same place on veganism but by different routes.

Answer 12

Vegetarianism is quite a heated topic.

Ethics requires care of the self. My suggestion is to prioritize one's health and well-being over abstract reasoning; basically, I am saying to adopt the diet that your doctor suggests.

---

I believe Peter Singer is an atheist who advocates for (semi-)vegetarianism on consequentialist grounds. Singer argues that a Supreme Being is not necessary to justify morality and also advocates for vegetarianism; according to him (semi-)vegetarianism is a natural consequent of his moral reasoning.

• (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer#Animal_liberation_and_veganism)
• (http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer05.htm)

Answer 13

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-11998687

Here's some information on the question of animal free will. It seems the existing evidence is inconclusive and difficult to read. However, one important point is that many people agree, including in the scientific community, that animals do not have as sophisticated a form of consciousness as do humans - they can't write philosophy treatises, for example. Of course, that doesn't mean our form of consciousness is better and it begs the question: how would we know how to value what theirs is like if we can't experience it from their perspective? Maybe it's actually wiser than ours in many ways. Maybe it's completely wiser than ours.

However, from our current - limited - perspective, it seems that in some ways animals lack the moral awareness and sophistication of humans, for better or for worse.

And I do think that the care of self argument is important here - we should be careful about establishing ethical standards that are too arduous for people to actually observe, noble though they may be. That just makes progress less likely to happen, not more. So the protein value of meat should be a factor in this discussion. Peter Singer has argued in the past that we should all give massive amounts of money away to charity - to the point of self impoverishment. To my mind, establishing an ethical standard that is so contrary to human nature, so beset with difficulty and so punishing to those who follow it is not very ethical in itself - and in the long run is more likely to cause unethical behavior, than the good and kind sort, I would wager! After all, if ethics is such an extreme art as to require total or near total self-sacrifice, why should people try to master it in the first place? Moralists ought to be careful of being overly demanding of a human nature with built-in limitations. MY 2 cents. W/ all that said, treating animals ethically and not hurting them without good reason seems like a good thing, and if a vegan diet offers a way to do that without hurting one's own health, that's fine w. me. Just as long as the issue isn't presented as completely one-sided.