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Libertarian Girl » Blog Archive » Can You Be Libertarian If You’re Not Vegan? Responses…

If the term “vegan” refers to an individual who believes animals have “rights,” then I say NO, you cannot be a vegan libertarian — according to my definition of libertarian. A “true” libertarian believes in the “zero aggression axiom” — that it is illegitimate, evil, prohibited, etc., to initiate force against human beings. Thus, it is impossible for a non-voluntary government to exist. A “true” libertarian is thus a free-market, private-property anarchist.

Can someone be such a libertarian — a “market anarchist” or “anarcho-capitalist” — and still be a vegan by some other definition? I say yes: and I am one.

I originally gave up meat and animal products purely in the name of health (The China Study), but quickly developed enhanced compassion for animals as a result of no longer seeing them as a tasty and essential part of my diet. Quickly, I converted from a non-ovo, non-lacto vegetarian, to a full-fledged vegan, with one crucial caveat: I reject the notion that animals have “rights.”

I want no animals to die for me. I want no animals to experience cruelty. But I recognize that animals are part of nature and nature belongs to human beings. The basis for “true” libertarianism is Rothbardian property theory, with starts with the premise of “self ownership.” I own myself, and I own my labor. When I mixed my labor with unowned nature, I own the product thereof, which is my property. This is the basis of all property. I can then do as I will with that property — including exchange it to others for their property. My only “right” is to be free from aggression against my property (including my body).

This property theory cannot be extended to animals, primarily because they lack the ability to respect the property of others. Animals initiate force against one another — it is in their nature. Animals “trespass” on property that has been homesteaded.

This does not mean that one cannot have compassion for animals and seek to minimize or eliminate their suffering. In fact, private ownership of animals has been shown to be the most effective way of protecting them — see elephants in Africa, for instance. And the market is the most effective means of producing change: boycotts, negative publicity, etc., are more effective than animal-protection laws, the latter of which have no basis under sound libertarian theory.

That’s my $0.02.

Owsley has been eating this way since 1959, when he read about the explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson discovering that the Inuit lived on nothing but meat and fish for most of the year, and that he and his European companions were also perfectly healthy on such a diet. Now 75 years old, Owsley credits his diet with slowing the growth of the tumor he was treated for in 2004 and allowing him to survive.

“Not willing to eat a dog? What about a whale or a monkey?”

Actually, I am. Eating a stray dog does not sound very sanitary, but I would be willing to try dog, whale, and monkey. Many people in the world do eat dogs, whales, and monkeys, so they can’t taste too bad.

“Obviously this is not a rational decision that’s being made, but a cultural norm that’s being adhered to.”

Following a cultural norm is a rational decision, but I don’t eat beef every day because it’s normal. I eat it because it tastes the best and I can obtain it easily.

“OK, let’s take this thought experiment to its natural conclusion. You’re in Florida, and a panther is coming towards you to eat you. At that moment…”

…I shoot the panther. In the head, a bunch of times. Humans use tools, and Florida is a shall-issue state. I’m sure you wouldn’t like that, because they’re endangered, but you have only yourself to blame for putting me in this horrible situation.

Obviously, not everybody has the good sense to bring a gun when they wander into the south Florida wilderness. However, there is still time for natural selection to do its good work.

My gun is a .45 ACP Colt M1911 if you’re interested in arguing that my bullets would lack adequate stopping power.

“No, and I can’t imagine why you would think I do.”

I can’t say for certain what I had in mind all those months ago, but it probably has to do with your last point: “It matters that humans and animals are sentient. Plants are not, they do not suffer, (for that matter, they are not subjected to long, excruciating deaths in veal crates and battery cages, why not try that out, Phoption and Rachel?), and therefore they do not deserve to be put on the same plane of consideration as humans.”

In your first point, you argue that whether or not one has rights shouldn’t depend on sentience, but in the end, you hold that sentience is everything. I don’t think that Terry Schiavo was capable of suffering in any conventional sense of the word, considering that most of her brain was gone, but you list her among the humans who have a right to live in spite of their imperfect reasoning processes. However, you believe that there is nothing wrong with eating a plant, because we do not observe any biological process that you interpret as pain or suffering.

Read a few of Jane Goodall’s monographs about the chimpanzees at Gombe and then you will be hard-pressed to say that animals are not capable of rational action.

I think that humans are uniquely capable of making moral choices, a major one of which can be the diet. That is a way that we are superior to animals, yet few of us show it.

If humans are so superior and so destined to eat animals for food, when’s the last time you ate someone’s dog? There are all sorts of strays running around.

Not willing to eat a dog? What about a whale or a monkey? OK, well then there’s some sort of cognitive dissonance happening there. If all animals are so inferior to us, and we are destined to eat them, why do we pick and choose which ones we do eat? Obviously this is not a rational decision that’s being made, but a cultural norm that’s being adhered to.

“Why do they have a right not to be killed by man? Animals kill each other all the time.”

OK, let’s take this thought experiment to its natural conclusion. You’re in Florida, and a panther is coming towards you to eat you. At that moment, the panther is far superior to you and is at the top of the food chain. Would you deny the panther its “right” to a tasty meal of you? We kill animals all the time, after all, and obviously one on one you can’t fight off the panther. If you would say that someone should step in to prevent the panther from enjoying its natural meal (you), then you can’t resort to any naturalistic arguments like we are the top of the food chain and animals kill so we can kill them. You already state that animals aren’t rational, then you want to hold them accountable for their actions. That makes no sense whether someone agrees with you on the first count or not.

“Do you consider humans in vegetative states morally equivalent to actual vegetables?”

No, and I can’t imagine why you would think I do.

I think that to say there is nothing that “really” distinguishes us from other animals is absurd; humans take rational action, using means to achieve our ends, while a beast involuntarily reacts, pursuing only the base instincts that humans are capable of suppressing in the interest of higher goals. I do not ravish every woman that stirs my senses, devour every piece of food that entices me, and knock down every fellow I’d like to kill. A child’s reasoning may be imperfect, but it is still reasoning. Animals do not take rational action, they do not develop new technologies, they do not accumulate capital, and they do not display awareness of their own mortality.

Regardless of whether humans are special, demanding veganism is saying, in effect, that animals are. Why do they have a right not to be killed by man? Animals kill each other all the time. Would you deny a lion the right to eat to eat a wildebeest because they are moral equals? A moral choice to refrain from eating other animals would in fact make us even more special, and under your logic even more entitled to eat other animals.

We are carnivores. We need to eat meat. Until we can grow it without a brain, we will kill other animals to get it.

“I propose that intellect isn’t relevant to whether you should be fodder or not. Your capacity to experience and feel pain should.”

Do you consider humans in vegetative states morally equivalent to actual vegetables?

Thanks for the response but again, you dodge the bullet. I never said there was a moral equivalency. But just because there is not 100% moral equivalency does not mean there is a 0% moral equivalency. Using intellect as solely a measure of whether a being deserves consideration or not leaves out whole groups of humans, who for whatever reason lack “average” intellect, from your reasoning. I propose that intellect isn’t relevant to whether you should be fodder or not. Your capacity to experience and feel pain should.

As for the LCC/LCA of eating plants directly, I never said that it was an equal trade off for humans to eat the what they feed to animals. Since you offer no real data, I’ll respond this way – some 90% of the soybeans grown in the US are fed to livestock. Yes, that one example, soybeans, if edible by humans. If the return is 9:1 of input:output (reasonable for beef) and even if human efficacy at soybeans was only 2:1, then its still 4.5x less than running it through an animal (ignoring the other energy inputs of raising and maintaining animals). This isn’t the 30′s anymore and I’m not getting into the “well cows eat grass” argument cause that idealistic pasture only exists in your head for 99% of commercial food. I’m not going to say that veg*nism is the most environmental choice. But it is way more environmental than the commercially produced meat if you consider all the inputs to the system. If resources and money could be used as a general metric of how environmentally taxing any food is, than why do most poor countries tend to eat less meat than the US? Its not because of some ethic for animals. Its because it takes more land, energy, calories to have your diet be meat centered.

Life Cycle Cost / Analysis has a long way to come and I am certainly interested in what the best choices are even if its not veg*nism.

The most ecologically sound way to live is probably a subsistence hunter-gatherer lifestyle. But let’s face it, that’s not our world now, and wouldn’t support the population we are dealing with. Nor am I some armchair intellectual eating posh vegan food at the finest dineries. I grow as much of my own food as possible so I can see, feel, and taste what it takes to put that food on my plate.

So though I appreciate the words of wisdom, they are seem like another “I like meat therefore I see things they way that’s convenient” argument.

Michael- If intelligence is the factor in whether something can be abused or eaten, what about the rights of a pig compared to a newborn baby? The pig is most certainly smarter than the baby. What about the rights of a pig in comparison to a mentally retarded child or adult who will never get better? The pig is smarter, so I guess if the pig saw fit to eat the mentally retarded child, that would be fine with you. Mentally retarded people must also be a “lower form of life” according to your definition because they are not as intelligent as what you define as a normal human being. a

A good portion of the land used for livestock grazing is actually rainforest– it’s the number one cause of deforestation in those areas. We wouldn’t have to use every acre of land currently used for grazing to grow plants in order to feed the people of the world who currently starve -we could just grow the same amount of crops and feed them to people rather than cows.

Why would any lives of animals have to be sacrificed to “save” humans? If anything, I’d define becoming vegetarian as the moment I was “saved.” I became healthier, both physically and mentally.

“If vegetarian food could compete with meat in the realm of taste, nutrition, cost and convenience, than I would switch over. With today’s technology, it does not.”

You’re joking, right? Or is this another case of no real arguments existing, so ones are just made up on the spot? I’ve had the best foods I’ve ever tasted since I’ve become vegetarian. You’re not actually trying to say that meat is healthier than plants? Please consult Pubmed and see what causes heart disease and cancer. You might as well call hospitals “recovery centers for the side effects of meat eating.”

Cost? Sure, a veggie burger may cost more than a Big Mac, but you either pay now or you pay later, in the health problems described above. It is not expensive to eat plants, and to the extent that McDonald’s does have its dollar menu full of burgers, it’s only through government subsidies/bailouts directed at the meat industry which no true libertarian could support.