The Predation Argument

Abstract

One common objection to ethical vegetarianism concerns the morality of the predator-prey relationship. According to some critics, ethical vegetarians fail to recognize that human beings are predatory animals (while not carnivores, at least omnivores), and that meat is a natural part of the human diet. If it is natural for human beings to eat meat, how could it be wrong? Related to this is the charge that ethical vegetarians are in the awkward position of condemning, not just human predation, but all forms of natural predation. If we should interfere in the operations of the meat industry or abolish recreational hunting because of the misery which these practices inflict upon animals, shouldn't we also interfere in the operations of nature and protect prey animals from wild predators? The objection raised here is sometimes called the "predation argument." In what follows, I will examine three versions of the argument. One version of the predation argument rests upon a comparison between human predation and predation in the wild. For many people, there is no significant difference between what human beings do in eating meat and what natural predators do in killing prey for food. Clearly, a wolf does nothing wrong in killing sheep for food, so why should it be wrong for human beings to eat meat? As Kent Baldner writes, "If killing for food is morally justifiable for natural predators, the same should be true for human predators,