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Vegetarianism as a Life Choice for Epicureans

What follows is a recent discussion on vegetarianism as a life choice for Epicureans. Please read Hermarchus on the Ethics of Vegetarianism and Treatment of Animals for context.

Hiram. We’ve been wondering what thoughts people have on vegetarianism from an Epicurean philosophy perspective.

Ron. If death is nothing to us, it is nothing to the animals. However, they are sentient beings and while they are alive they deserve from us a pleasant life.

Lena. I think being involved in animal slaughter is a harm for the people involved. We can make this better by improving conditions for animals and people, but the physical and emotional danger to us must be part of the calculus.

Eileen. I don’t recall him ever saying killing is nothing, though. Epicurus believed we are not unique among the animals. Since we wouldn’t want to be killed, I can imagine he might think we should forgo killing them, especially since we can be healthy as vegetarians. I assume he was aware that people can be vegetarians because there were some in ancient Athens in his day. Maybe I’m assuming too much.

Anthony. I think as in all things hedonic calculus needs to be performed. In some situations, such as human starvation or malnutrition, there is less pain if the human, who has the blessing and curse of foresight (knowing they will starve to death or at least suffer much pain from hunger and malnutrition), the killing of an animal for food in my opinion is an obvious choice. I believe eating fish and insects may be more morally acceptable as those animals, as far as I know, are less aware of their fate and so have less anxiety about death.

Is it not natural and correct for the individual to first consider their own essential needs before another’s as we who understand nature would expect others to do?

Hiram. I suppose a more scientific approach to this from an ethical perspective that takes into consideration how much pleasure vs pain our choices and avoidances generate is to think in terms of the neural complexity of the creature that we kill for food. This has always seemed intuitively correct to me: like you said, a cricket is much less complex in his neural system than a cow or pig, and therefore getting protein from them is less cruel. I think the amount of unnecessary suffering generated is part of what generates discomfort and guilt in us.

Lena. Some Jains don’t eat potatoes because it destroys too many microbes, and I’ve seen an argument that the push to farm insects as protein isn’t a moral improvement over current livestock, because the quantity of lives and suffering would become so significant.

Hiram. The Epicurean Scholarch Hermarchus seems to be putting forward ecological management arguments in the cited article. If too many of certain creatures breed they should probably be eaten. On the other hand many species of fish will be depleted by 2050 because of over-fishing and will likely become protected species soon.

Matt. The best advice on this subject I ever have heard came from a Theravada Buddhist monk…though he himself was a vegetarian living in Sri Lanka, he admonished others that took a position that vegetarianism is the “correct” thing to do. He would say that Buddhists living in places where it is inhospitable to grow crops like Tibet and Mongolia … those monks must subsist on meat and dairy in lieu of a strictly vegetarian diet. So it can’t be a universal precept. It may be right for an individual but it can’t be proclaimed as universally orthodox since there are societies that have been subsisting on animal products since time immemorial and the reasoning has to do with necessity.

I have also made serious attempts to be vegetarian in my life, specifically when I adapted to a Hindu/Eastern philosophy years ago. I find the reasoning within eastern philosophy to be pretty flimsy, based on metaphysical idealism that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. I have finally settled on the fact that meat eating is good for me, as a personal position. I have hunted and I have killed animals before for food and I am comfortable with this decision from an ethical perspective, even if I don’t personally kill the animal that produces the meat I consume or my family consumes on a regular basis.

Si. Personally I think that looking at what you eat and why is a part of the analyzed life. The industrial meat industry is a lot different than in the Hellenistic era. So even if Epicurus has the occasional meat, it’s very different now. With environmental considerations as well as ethics, I personally made the choice to be vegetarian and move towards having a mostly plant based. I try and cause as least pain as possible in an imperfect world.

Marcus. Evidence points to the ancient Epicureans being flexitarians, eating meat on occasion but mostly encouraging vegetarianism as healthier. Desire for meat was considered natural but not necessary.

Beryl. Biologically we have the dental apparatus of omnivores therefore we have adaptations to eat everything. That is our true nature as human beings. I have worked in medical research and seen the morally corrupting influence of using animals as vessels for our own natural urges and unnatural urges and interests Killing does seem to change people and reduce their empathy for living things. I turned my back on this type of medical research in my twenties viewing it as barbaric and pollutional for me.

Shahab. I think our nature or our natural body is more adapted for consumption of plants, rather than meat. Historically, people used less amount of meat. Eating meat was considered to be ceremonial, and somehow, a privilege for kings and their courtmen. Moreover, maybe by comparing the shape of our teeth to other non-human animals we can draw the conclusion that we are less adapted to eating meat than to plants.

Plus, the veganism is a modern subject, or let’s say, a reaction to the modern problem of over-production of meat, and kinds of diseases related to over-consumption of meat, and also the development of ethical framework which takes non-humans as subjects of ethical discussions.

When I remember my own childhood, or see other children’s affection toward animals, and their deep opposition to killing them, I can draw the raw conclusion that beside eating meat, killing animals regularly and on a mass scale is an outright deviation from our nature.

Hiram. Philodemus says that people who suffer from chronic, out-of-control rage are “like wild beasts”. Similarly we could argue that people who enjoy causing suffering to innocent animals are also “like wild beasts”, and that they remain in a wild, pre-civilized state. Whenever a creature complains or cries while being mistreated, it is understood that the animal is not giving its consent to how it’s being treated, that some form of communication of denial of consent is being given. Therefore, the act is unjust (as per Doctrine 32), and if animals have to be slaughtered for food, they should be killed in the least painful way possible.

Matt. This particular study shows evidence that human evolutionary progress was the result of an exceptionally high protein diet. Even our facial structure has been changed. Early humans have gone through multiple phases, but the reality is that humans have in fact had high protein diets in prehistoric times and even today. Agriculture is a fairly modern invention in the history of humankind. Human biology shows evidence that early humans became what we are now from a divergent lifestyle of pure herbivory.

This is not a condemnation of Vegetarianism or Veganism on philosophical or health grounds. I believe that a person chooses that lifestyle for many good reasons. I cannot say the vegetarianism of the Hindu Indian is ethically more correct than the traditional heavy protein rich diet of the Inuit in Nunavut. Both lifestyles arose organically and are currently being practiced, and there are many, many cultures that fall in between these two extremes that also arose entirely organically.

Beryl. I attended a conference six years ago now which looked specifically at new diagnostic methods to link human genome to food benefits with many researchers saying that individual diets for health optimization were being developed, so I agree what is natural and necessary for one person is not natural or even healthy for another. Ultimately hedonic calculus helps to determine the actions that make one healthy bodily and psychologically and which cause oneself and those about us least suffering.

Ultimately though I do believe we must evolve to develop greater empathy and connection with our fellow species on this planet and to step aside from our egotistical drives for survival which are now hurting vast swathes of the world’s populations and is causing global temperature. There are 7 billion of us on the planet and some animal species are down to their last 50 individuals. As an individual, I am starting where I am, taking responsibility for what I do and influencing where I can. I am not wedded to that though. If our species died out then that would mean nothing to me, however the future suffering of the upcoming generations does trouble me and perhaps that’s a topic for further discussion sometime.

Nate. If it works for you, it works for you. Nature gave us a variety of teeth, a variety of micro-bacteria in our guts, and a variety of digestible items in our environments from which to choose. It would be odd for an omnivorous, opportunistic mammalian species to exhibit anything less than diversity in diets.

SoFE Journal Volume 11 – 2016-2017

Articles

Hiram Crespo
“Parallel Sayings” Buddhist Meme Series
January 23, 2016

Hiram Crespo
The Punctured Jar Parable
March 20, 2016

Hiram Crespo
Cyrenaic Reasonings
August 5, 2016

Alan Furth
Tending the Epicurean Garden, by Hiram Crespo
September 4, 2016

Friends of Epicurus
Dialogue on Virtue
September 5, 2016

Society of Epicurus
Society of Epicurus Publishes Epitome in Esperanto
September 20, 2016

Friends of Epicurus
Dialogue on the Search for Meaning
October 8, 2016

Hiram Crespo
Hermarchus on the Ethics of Vegetarianism and Treatment of Animals
October 24, 2016

Matt Jackson
The Gods of the Garden, the God of the Mount and the Absolute
February 5, 2017

Society of Epicurus
Panhellenic Symposium of Epicurean Philosophy, Greetings from Hiram Crespo, Founder of SoFE
February 24, 2017

Hiram Crespo
Essays About Nietzsche’s Will to Power
February 27, 2017

Hiram Crespo
The Bonobo and the Atheist Book Review
March 2, 2017

Hiram Crespo
The Taoist Hedonism of Yang Chu
March 7, 2017

Friends of Epicurus
Self-Guided Study Curriculum
March 20, 2017

Lucian of Samosata
Alexander the Oracle Monger
March 27, 2017

Hiram Crespo / Digenes of Oenoanda
Gleanings from Diogenes’ Wall
April 15, 2017

Friends of Epicurus
Self-Guided Study Curriculum
March 20, 2017

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Hermarchus on the Ethics of Vegetarianism and Treatment of Animals

A discussion on vegetarianism and ethics in the Epicurean Philosophy facebook group was initially incited by a provocative video on why we love dogs and eat pigs, which evaluates the controversy, double standards and hypocrisy of the matter. I’ve read more than once that one of the founders of the Epicurean school, the second Scholarch and Epicurus’ successor, Hermarchus of Mytilene, was vegetarian. But it has always been difficult to verify the source. Recently, we came across one indirect source in Porphyry’s On Abstinence. It cites Hermarchus’ polemical treatise Letters About Empedocles.

It turns out that the answer to our inquiry, according to Epicurean doctrine, is that the moral reasons for vegetarianism are relative to the circumstances and that they depend on advantage. If animals of a certain species are likely to become too numerous, eating them may be encouraged.

For instance, Puerto Rico in recent years has seen a proliferation of iguanas that are not native to the island but have taken over, as they have no natural predator in the island–except, perhaps, the powerful Caribbean hawk. As a result of this, one of the ways in which the locals have begun controlling the population is by doing the (previously) unthinkable: they are now adding iguana to the menu, and many people have found that they love the meat. It tastes like (as you may have guessed) chicken–that quintessentially “common” and “normal” meat. They now call it gallina de palo (“the chicken of the trees”).

The Arguments of the Epicureans, from Hermachus

Porphyry’s portion on Hermarchus begins in his paragraph 7. It begins by considering how ancient legislators declared manslaughter as unholy and punished it, and later argues that some people (only those who are unwise) need punishment in order to stop them from killing others, whereas the wise do not need to be reminded of such punishment. Later in paragraph 9, we see religion tied to this:

… The vulgar everywhere require something which may impede them from promptly performing what is not advantageous [to the community] …. For that part of the soul which is void of intellect, being variously disciplined, acquired a becoming mildness, certain taming arts having been from the first invented for the purpose of subduing the irrational impulses of desire, by those who governed the people.

By “taming arts” we may understand not only religious techniques for making individuals docile, but also a certain education, which instills presumably fear of the gods, of public shame, of being banished from the community, and of punishment.

As a continuation of a discussion against manslaughter, the morality of killing some animals is defended here for the sake of security. For instance, a community may need to slay a lion or wolves who are endangering its members.

Those who first defined what we ought to do, and what we ought not, very properly did not forbid us to kill other animals. For the advantage arising from these is effected … since it is not possible that men could be preserved, unless they endeavoured to defend those who are nurtured with themselves from the attacks of other animals.

This is consistent with the sixth Principal Doctrine, which says that anything done for the sake of security is a natural good. It is also extended to the realm of non-violence among humans. For mutual advantage and in order to secure ataraxia (a fear-less life) and to secure all the things that are necessary (access to food, trade), neighbors and strangers entered into covenants of non-harm.

Some of those, of the most elegant manners, recollecting that they abstained from slaughter because it was useful to the public safety …. for the purpose of repelling the attacks of animals of another species; but also for defence against men whose design was to act nefariously … they abstained from the slaughter of men …. in order that there might be a communion among them in things that are necessary, and that a certain utility might be afforded in each of the above-mentioned incommodities.

For the destruction of every thing noxious, and the preservation of that which is subservient to its extermination, similarly contribute to a fearless life.

Here, Hermarchus introduces his non-violent views towards members of other species. He argues that if an animal is not causing us harm or injury, it should not be killed.

Nor must it be said, that the law allows us to destroy some animals which are not corruptive of human nature, and which are not in any other way injurious to our life. For as I may say, no animal among those which the law permits us to kill is of this kind.

Of course, and consistent with Principal Doctrine 38, justice must always be relative to circumstances and these laws and categories of animals may change according to (dis)advantage, as we saw in the case of animals that overbreed and become too numerous, becoming a pest.

Since, if we suffered them to increase excessively, they would become injurious to us. But through the number of them which is now preserved, certain advantages are imparted to human life. For sheep and oxen, and every such like animal, when the number of them is moderate, are beneficial to our necessary wants; but if they become redundant in the extreme, and far exceed the number which is sufficient, they then become detrimental to our life; the latter by employing their strength, in consequence of participating of this through an innate power of nature, and the former, by consuming the nutriment which springs up from the earth for our benefit alone. Hence, through this cause, the slaughter of animals of this kind is not prohibited, in order that as many of them as are sufficient for our use, and which we may be able easily to subdue, may be left.

Three categories of animals are distinguished: the tame ones that are sometimes useful to us (therefore 1. useful tame animals and 2. useless tame animals), and 3. the savage ones that are not useful to us. Some may argue that some wild animals provide some utility, but here Hermarchus does not seem to acknowledge that anything natural and necessary can be attained from them. I can think of whale blubber, for instance, but the industry that this product spawned–and which nearly brought some species of whale to extinction–is widely considered immoral and evil today, and the products that this species offers humans can only be said to be “necessary” for certain populations of Inuits who survive through the winter thanks to it.

For it is not with horses, oxen, and sheep, and with all tame animals, as it is with lions and wolves and, in short, with all such as are called savage animals that, whether the number of them is small or great, no multitude of them can be assumed which, if left, would alleviate the necessity of our life. And on this account, indeed, we utterly destroy some of them; but of others, we take away as many as are found to be more than commensurate to our use.

The Scholarch was arguing that we are likely to want to keep some of these tame animals around (for food, clothing, transportation, etc.) but not so many that we can’t subdue them. But today, we may question whether it is fair to derive certain items of clothing and fashion from animals which can alternately be produced without causing suffering to any creature. The question of using horses rather than bikes or cars is, likewise, ridiculous. I would argue that the rise of the machines was meant to diminish the unnecessary suffering and labor of sentient beings, both human and non-human. Paragraph 12 concludes by reminding us that justice is based on advantage.

On this account, from the above-mentioned causes, it is similarly requisite to think, that what pertains to the eating of animals, was ordained by those who from the first established the laws; and that the advantageous and the disadvantageous were the causes why some animals were permitted to be eaten and others not.

So that, if Hermarchus was indeed vegetarian, or mostly vegetarian–which we do not know with certainty–he seems to have been arguing that because he did not live during a time when sheep, oxen, or other creatures were so numerous that they required laws to diminish their population in order to avoid their detriment to human populations, ergo he reasoned that this justified vegetarianism for the generation in which he lived.

Finally, the issue of animal intelligence may change this paradigm. For the time being, many countries already consider great apes as “non-human persons”, and a recent gathering of scientists in Vancouver also concluded that dolphins are “non-human persons”, mainly because it has been discovered that they have language (and social life) as complex as ours and that each dolphin answers to their own name. Several research stations are working on attempts to decipher dolphin speech, and some fishermen communities in Brasil have developed human-dolphin fishing techniques that produce mutual advantage by securing large amounts of smaller fish for the two higher species.

It’s possible that elephants, whose brains are bigger than ours, may soon join this new category of “non-human persons”, which constitutes a major paradigm shift in inter-species relations on Earth. If we are one day able to communicate with dolphins or to raise communities of great apes that use (as some individuals have) sign language to interact with us, we may reach a time in history when it is possible to have inter-species agreements and binding legal contracts. Hermarchus, in his day, considered this unthinkable but said that, if one day such a thing were possible, these contracts must be honored.

If, therefore, it was possible to make a certain compact with other animals in the same manner as with men, that we should not kill them, nor they us, and that they should not be indiscriminately destroyed by us, it would be well to extend justice as far as to this; for this extent of it would be attended with security. But since it is … impossible, that animals which are not recipients of reason should participate with us of law, on this account, utility cannot be in a greater degree procured by security from other animals, than from inanimate natures. But we can alone obtain security from the liberty which we now possess of putting them to death. And such are the arguments of the Epicureans.

But it is not only advantage, as Epicurus would have it, that explains the origins of justice when it comes to creatures that we can’t have agreements and contracts with, and in this Hermarchus departed slightly from the first Scholarch and we see the evolution of Epicurean doctrine as a result of exchanges with other schools.

The complicated discussion of animals and whatever courtesies and compassion we owe to dogs, cats, cows, and others, falls within a broader discussion of morality and where we get our morals from. It is here that the ancient Epicureans exhibited an accentuated interest in anthropology and elaborated theories of how moral instincts evolved naturally.

The Doctrine of Kinship

The Stoic doctrine of oikeiosis–which may translate as affinity, familiarity, affiliation, or endearment with those that are like us–establishes that there is a natural kinship among members of the same species, and was adapted by Hermarchus to help explain the origin of justice and homicide laws. He argues that we do not feel this kinship for animals, only for each other. Modern theories on how household pets, like dogs and cats, have evolved to trigger our evolutionary instincts to protect babies, may constitute an update to Hermarchus’ views.

In arguing that no animal which lacks logos (reason) has any share in justice, Hermarchus seeks to refute Empedocles’ view that a fellowship exists between men and irrational animals which makes it unjust to slay or sacrifice them.

As a side note, we may add context to these arguments by considering that Hermarchus was, in part, also defending the practice of animal sacrifice in order to feed his community on special occasions, as this was part of the 20th feasts and other pious and religious celebrations of the Epicureans.

Paul Waerdt, in his essay Epicurean Genealogy of Morals, argued that this kinship as a cause is subordinated to the calculation of advantage. That is: in Hermarchus, kinship does not replace advantage, but simply complements it as a source of morality and justice. His acceptance of it as a secondary cause keeps the utilitarian principle as higher priority, and is in line with the Epicurean way of reasoning, where multiple causes are acceptable as long as they do not contradict empirical evidence or each other.

In the acceptance of oikeiosis, Hermarchus introduces an innovation (see our two guidelines on innovation), even if he concedes that this oikeiosis is sometimes only experienced by those of a “finer nature”.

Theophrastus had argued that it was only just to kill naturally hostile animals because we are naturally akin to all other animals. Hermarchus, on the other hand, restricts kinship to only members of a community who contribute to its survival. This theory is very strongly vindicated, time and again, by the numerous historical and research examples mentioned in the awfully-named yet brilliant anthropology book The Lucifer Principle.

Hermarchus introduced the concept of individuals who exhibit “finer natures”, pointing the finger at the good influence on our character that we get from association with other people of good character.

Perhaps we may consider, instead, the possibility that various degrees of kinship can be recognized, and that there are many gray areas here? This may explain how some cultures–Vaishnava Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Vegans, and Jews who keep eco-kashrut–are more likely to exhibit a “finer nature” and to exhibit greater degrees of compassion for lesser sentient beings.

Hermarchus and the Epicurean Genealogy of Morals

The Scholarch discusses themes that are widely debated with great interest in the atheist community on the origins of morality as a natural phenomenon.

In Epicurean anthropology (as we see in Lucretius), the early stages of evolution of human traits is natural, and these only later give way to rationally-directed stages of development. We see this in Lucretius’ accounts of the evolution of language and friendship, for instance. Nature gave the initial incentive for morality, and later reason made nature’s insights more precise.

For instance, Hermarchus argued that ancient lawgivers conceived that homicide was not useful, had no utility or advantage. Concerning anti-homocide laws, he said they originate in the remembrance of a naturally advantageous practice of non violence, and later the taboo crystallized in the culture and mores of human groups.

The Kosher Example

The kashrut rules established in the Bible provide an insight into how, with time, rules that may have generated as a result of the study of nature, become crystallized into societal taboos that people consciously fashioned. It’s not difficult to imagine how the consumption of blood may have generated public health problems in some ancient societies. As for how ancient people decided what animals are fit to eat, this Neo-Hassidic page states:

… any animal that chews its cud can eat grasses and plants that are inedible to human beings, and any animal that has split hooves can walk (and graze) on land that is too rocky to farm with a plow. These characteristics together mean one very clear thing: the only land animals that we can eat according to the laws of kashrut are animals that do not compete with human beings for food.

Which means that the initial reasoning behind kashrut involved considerations of advantage in terms of, if we are going to consume the flesh of other animals, which are the ones that are the least likely to compete with us for food in our environment? This questions acquires greater urgency in a desert setting, where food scarcity is a frequent problem. Of course, the re-negotiation of passed-down tradition versus renewed considerations is constant, and many modern Jews are evaluating the merits of a contemporary discourse around eco-kashrut, or how the rules related to consumption can be expanded or changed to reflect ecological and labor concerns of our day.

All of the above considerations are part of our discourse on vegetarianism and treatment of animals.

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The above discussion was informed, in part, by the essay “Epicurean Genealogy of Morals” by Paul A Vander Waerdt, from Duke University.

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