On Rationality of Being ‘Gratitarian’

Typically, people become vegetarians either because they believe it is better for their health, or they hate the thought that they are responsible for the death of an animal. Either of these two rationales are good rationales for vegetarianism.

Consider, however, that regardless, if man ceases to eat deer, lions still will hunt deer for food. By this token, if man were to release all of it’s goats, cows, sheep, and rams into the wild, all this will do is provide lions, tigers, and cougars with a lot more options for their cuisine. It perhaps is the case they are so overwhelmed with the abundance, they overeat. We arrive then at an important insight, which is, man’s abstinence from eating of meat does nothing to spare herbivorous animals from being killed for food.

While non-eating of meat must be regarded as noble, it does nothing to spare herbivorous animals from being killed for food.

If we take as given the fact that, in presence of transition of mankind to vegetarianism, herbivorous animals still will be killed for food, the relative painlessness of the act of killing comes up as a mitigating consideration. In this respect, with man having invented almost painless approaches to killing of animals for food, relative to lions, tigers, or…