Vegetarianism and the Other Weight Problem free essay sample

The first argument is one appealing to the interests that humans have in conserving food resources.He starts out by giving figures to illustrate the American overabundance of food as many American households are throwing out garbage about ten percent of the food they buy every day. As he states, it is immoral to buy and waste food; it is practical and reasonable for us to shop more carefully, buy somewhat less, not waste the food surplus and give extra money to buy food for starving people in order to help relieve famine. Rachels admits that shipments of food alone will not solve the problems of famine; however, there is no conclusive evidence that the situation is hopeless.In fact, there have been positive improvements in certain countries. He believes that combining short-term famine relief efforts and long-range population control programs can considerably reduce the tragedy of starvation. Another matter that he discusses is the inefficiency of the grain growing process as a large percentage of grain produced in the United States is fed to animals raised for slaughter. We will write a custom essay sample on Vegetarianism and the Other Weight Problem or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page If this massive quantity of grain currently fed to livestock were consumed directly by people, a great number of people could be fed.We are indeed wasting a great deal of grain in this manner; instead we can totally eat portion of the grain and use the rest to relieve hunger His second argument is appealing directly to the interests of the animals themselves. Cruelty to animals must be opposed because it directly makes animals suffer and has ancillary effects on humans. As a part the meat production process, immoral practices of cruelty are adopted because of their efficiency and low cost. The suffering of animals who are raised and laughtered for food is not justified, since it is not necessary for us to eat animals to get the nutrition we need. We treat animals cruelly simply just to serve our trivial enjoyment of taste. In addition, Rachels asserts that it is impossible to treat the animals decently yet still produce a sufficient amount of meat. According to him, the humane production of millions of pounds of meat would be so costly that it would force most of us to become vegetarians, as most of us would not have the resources to be able to afford much meat.In response to the question that: â€Å"if meat could be produced humanely, without mistreating the animals prior to eating them painlessly, would there be anything wrong with it ? † (Rachels 372), he argues that human being the subjects of biographical and not merely biological lives is what qualifies humans for rights; however, the animals with which we are most familiar are subjects of biographical lives and if we have the right to life on the basis of having a life, then those animals have rights to life as well. Thus, even if the farming practices are completely humane, killing the animals is still immoral.There are millions of vegetarians already, there is already less cruelty than there would be otherwise, so little effect does not equate none. He uses the analogy of slavery to retort to the objection as knowing that one have little effect on slave trade if one does not own slave would not mitigate the moral culpability for owning slave. Like owning slaves, if the cruelty of factory farming is immoral, it is â€Å"his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support†.Therefore, we ought to be vegetarian All in all, through these two arguments, James Rachels discusses the immorality of meat eating due to the valuable protein it wastes, along with the enormous suffering it causes to animals and he argues for a moral duty to be vegetarian. Rachels, James. Vegetarianism and the Other Weight Problem. 367-73. Print.