Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Chimps and Ethics (was Re: The thought experiment...)
From: kerr@redgum.ucnv.edu.au (r.kerr)
Date: 9 Nov 92 12:55:09 +0900
Organization: UCNV, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia

Our network connection is back.  Thanks for the forwarding the relevant
articles to me, Ted.  Those of you waiting for email responses will
have to be patient, I'm afraid.  I've got about six replies to go.
Those of you who wrote hate mail need not be under any illusion that I
will reply.  Your words have vanished in a flurry of electrons.  So much
for the "kinder, gentler" vegetarian.  The invective was worse than I
have ever recieved from any other newsgroup...

I stirred up this hornet's nest by writing:
>Let me end with a question for you.  Every other primate has been
>recorded killing and eating other animals as a normal part of their diet.
>We are unspecialised animals with unspecialised diets.  I take it that
>you will agree that this behaviour is not evil in chimpanzees, the
>species closest to our own.  How can we insist on different standards
>for ourselves without seeing ourselves as being "above" our
>environment?

>Tom Swiss writes:
>     Chimps have a totalitarian social structure and have been known
>to kill other members of their species over "political" power. Is it
>"evil" for them to do so? In so far as "evil" has any meaning, I don't
>think so. Yet few people would argue that it's okay for humans to kill
>other members of their own species for such reasons. Or consier wild
>animals that attack men. Is a grizzly bear who kills a human "evil"?
>What about a human who kills a human?

Every social species has some mechanism for resolving disputes.  I do
not advocate taking any other species' social structures and applying
them to ourselves.  I was trying to say that the species nearest our
own are all omnivorous (some primates are actually carnivorous) and if
we are going to make an exception for ourselves on moral grounds we're
going to have to do some pretty swift talking.

>Ted Altar writes:
>rfordyce@kurango.cit.gu.edu.au (Rachel Fordyce) writes:
>>I thought chimpanzees were vegetarian...
>
>Yes, you are essentally right.  Only about 4% of their diet consists 
>of meat.  They also eat insects, grubs and ants, but interesting
>our omnivorous critics don't then argue that we should be
>far more bugs (preferably alive) than animal flesh, as do
>the chimps.

Actually, some do.  It is pure cultural bias to insist that insects,
grubs and ants are cullinarily out of bounds.  I have eaten choclate
coated grasshoppers (hard to describe - a bit like sweet potato),
witchetty grubs (a Koori delicacy - a bit like almonds) and honey ants
(tasted like honey, funnily enough).  Some worm farmers here sell Tiger
worms as food.  There are even worm restaurants!

This reinforces my point.  Food taboos are a cultural phenomenon.  Western
vegetarianism traces its roots back to the naturalism of the mid-to-late
Eighteen Hundreds.  Although you may feel a certain kinship with the Jains,
Hindus and Ancient Egyptians, western vegetarianism stems from a very
different motivation.  Even ancient writers in our own intellectual tradition
(e.g. Plutarch and Pythagorus) owe more to the mystery religions of their
time than the modern extension of a sense of fair play.

> Instead, that mere 4% consumption of meat is
>used as some kind of justification for our riotous gluttony
>of all manner of meats during every meal every day, year in
>and year out.  If people were consistent in their argumentation,
>then if meat eating is to be justifies by what chimps eat, 
>then we should be eating a chimp diet where only 4% of the
>fare is actually meat. 

Riotous gluttony?  Doesn't really describe mealtime at the Kerr's but I
'spose it must have felt good to get it off your chest.  "Better out than
in," as they say.

BTW, there's a big leap from "our branch of the evolutionary tree is
omniverous" to "we ought to eat what chimps do."  You don't really see
that as being consistent do you?

>Also, much was made of the chimps attacking and eating baboons,
>and killing other chimps, but what is forgotten that even Jane
>Goodall's naturalistic observations were still intrusive and
>created some of what was observed.  [Explication deleted]

I'm not sure that I made much out of it...judge for yourself.  I agree
that some behaviour in Goodall's study is artificial.  She was very
concerned about this herself.  Subsequent studies show that chimps eat
whatever they can catch.  When a family unit of chimps learn how to
catch termites, they eat a lot of termites.  When they have the
opportunity to catch a lot of Marmoset they eat what they can.  Being
slower than most animals they eat predictably less meat than some
primates.  I visited Singapore zoo recently (one of the worlds most
advanced zoos), they now include meat in their primate's diets in
recognition of this work.

Kyle Cassidy writes:
>Rachel Fordyce writes:
>>I thought chimpanzees were vegetarian...
>>
>it hardly matters. i think your point (and mine too) is that we are not 
>chimpanzees. hopefully i've evolved a little more than a chimpanzee and can 
>see that killing things is wrong.

I don't mean to pick on you, Kyle.  In my experince this is the most
common vegetarian position on predation.  It's also the position which
Ted denounced as a straw man.  And this is the position which forced me
to give vegetarianism up.  "We have evolved beyond the rest of nature and
we know now that it is wrong."  The loggers must think something like
that as they hack into our old-growth forests.  Gould's _The_Mismeasure_
_of_Man_ shows how moral evolution was used to justify discrimination against
any minority (Blacks, Jews, Women) that challenged WASP male domination.

Now I'm _not_ accusing you of environmental terrorism or horrendous social
crimes.  Your lifestyle is probably environmentally sensitive and you
might be one of the kindest, gentlest people on earth.  I have no way of
knowing.  I do know that claims of moral evolution are dangerous and usually
result in political and environmental disasters.  Tolerate an error,
entertain it, cultivate it a little and it will permeate your entire
world view.

Regards, Richard.  (kerr@redgum.ucnv.edu.au)