Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Prompt 07

http://phil149.blogspot.com/2012/01/prompt-01.html

I have chosen to review my first post about animal suffering.  Although I have reconsidered this post several times I have never  considered it under the critical lens of being a consumer.  Thinking through the critical lens of being a consumer makes the idea of meat disgusting.   What I have realized is that what is paid for is the quality of life of the animal.  We make a decision whether we know it or not about the welfare of animals anytime we purchase.  When we are in a store we are generally presented with a couple of options but what they essentially boil down to is do we want to buy the cheaper or the more expensive meat.  From a consumer standpoint, we observe that (supposedly) we are getting the same amount of nutrition from each, the same weight, however, one is priced far higher.  A person who is not thinking about the larger implications of the purchase and more about the implication on their wallet will think of this decision as a no brainer and purchase the cheaper beef.  However, this is how decisions operating on purely cost benefit analysis do not yield results that are beneficial to the community as a whole.  I think that this coincides nicely with my original idea about how we can go into a supermarket and see 'neatly wrapped packages of meat' and make simple economic decisions.  My post reflects my belief that the consumerism has made us think about meat as a commodity rather than an animal and when we think about meat in these terms it is very easy to devaluate the life experience of an animal if its life goal is merely to become a meal on our dinner plate.  After these readings I am even less optimistic about the probability of this process changing because society has conditioned us to think in terms of being a consumer, and the agricultural choice that emphasizes fair treatment of animals will never be the cheaper option because of how this process is more expensive.  The only way that we can ever make a difference is to consider something different than pure bottom line and perhaps consider a triple bottom line that considers more than just cost into our decisions.

However, one comment from the lecture really jumped out at me.  It was Ethan's comment and he talks about the power that a consumer can have.  He points out that we can make statements about our values even in a capitalist society by making seemingly simple decisions.  I really like this idea because it presents an alternative way to think about our interactions with the environment around us.  I realize my idea of going hunting to better understand the process is pragmatic and unrealistic way for us to make decisions about the way we eat meat.  However, we can make a decision each day to do something that is ethically responsible such as spend a few extra dollars to make a more responsible purchase.  In conclusion I think that the consumer model is the wrong process for the meat industry, however, we are given choices and thus we have the ability to make ethical decisions if we are able to expand our mind and think beyond the archaic philosophy of a single bottom line.

2 comments:

  1. Capitalism places an emphasis on the individual. People are selfish. Most of us think about ourselves and our families before we think about anyone else. It is a free market in which we make all of our decisions solely for our purposes. It makes life so much easier to have to think of only ourselves. Not many people are willing to make sacrifices for the general good. I feel this is why it has become so predominant in today's society.

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  2. As you very accurately put it society has conditioned us to think from a consumer standpoint. This consumerism model we apply when buying meat will probably never change because when faced with food or in this case meat (supposedly the same)we tend to chose the cheapest option.

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