chaerinahn

This book is glittering prose! I read it with a pencil or pen in hand and typically felt like underlining every word on the page! I was always scribbling things in the margins. It was great! I am amazed at how carefully Matthew Scully explains his thinking on various subjects, without being overbearing or self-righteous. I will try to quote some of my favorite passages, although there are too many favorites to include here. "let us just call things what they are. When a man's love of finery clouds his moral judgment, that is vanity. When he lets his demanding palate make his moral choices, that is gluttony. When he ascribes the divine will to his own whims, that is pride. And when he gets angry at being reminded of animal suffering that his own daily choices might help avoid, that is moral cowardice." p. 121 "When substitute products are found, with each creature in turn, responsible dominion calls for a reprieve. The warrant expires. The divine mandate is used up. What were once "necessary evils" become just evils. Laws protecting animals from mistreatment, abuse, and exploitation are not a moral luxury or sentimental afterthought to be shrugged off. They are a serious moral obligation, only clearer in the more developed parts of the world where we cannot plead poverty. Man, guided by the very light of reason and ethics that was his claim to dominion in the first place, should in generations to come have the good grace to repay his debts, step back wherever possible and leave the creatures be, off to live out the lives designed for them, with all the beauty and sights and smells and warm winds, and all the natural hardships, dangers, and violence, too." p. 43 "We tend to assume, moreover, that instinct, even when it is clearly at work, means there can be no accompanying thought or feeling--as if a doe when she caresses her fawn, or your cat when he or she kneads on you, can have no awareness or pleasure in that instinctive experience. We certainly don't assume that about ourselves when we feel the tug of instinct, in avoiding danger or safeguarding our young or seeking potential mates. On the contrary, the thoughts and emotions accompanying instinctive desires are usually the most vivid. The most earthy, ordinary human experiences--coupling, birthing, dying--are in fact, the most deeply experienced. Instinctive desire and action in our own case does not always mean blind, unfeeling reflex, and there is no reason to supppose it is any different for them." p. 228 "The whole sad business, even while defended in terms of reason and realism, is designed precisely to prevent that engagement with the facts, to keep information and conscience as far apart as possible, to soothe and satisfy all at once, now even to the point of eradicating 'cosmetic defects' like bloodsplash lest Everyone be troubled by the thought that pain was felt and blood was shed. "I know many people far more upright and conscientious than I am who disagree, who think nothing of it. I know that vegetarianism runs against mankind's most casual assumptions about the world and our place within it. And I know that factory farming is an economic inevitability, not likely to end anytime soon. "But I don't answer to inevitabilities, and neither do you. I don't answer to the economy. I don't answer to tradition and I don't answer to Everyone. For me, it comes down to a question of whether I am a man or just a consumer. Whether to reason or just to rationalize. Whether to heed my conscience or my every craving, to assert my free will or just my will. Whether to side with the powerful and comfortable or with the weak, afflicted, and forgotten. Whether, as an economic actor in the free market, I answer to the god of money or the God of mercy." pp. 324-325.

2023-02-18 09:14