Strata of Speciesism and the Cultural Practice of Food Choice

Abstract

Western animal right activists like Peter Singer often resorts to the Buddhist tradition for resources of their anti-speciesism critique of meat eating. However, their assumption of Eastern philosophical and religious tradition often reveals overgeneralization or oversimplification. Such Westerners’ overgeneralization is caused by their limited understanding of or by selective adaptation of a fragment of Eastern religious ethics for reasons they consider important with little consideration of the whole picture of the Buddhist tradition. Not a few central notions of Buddhism underwent changes in the process of adaptation of native religious and philosophical tradition when Buddhism spread throughout southeast and northeast Asian countries. This in turn has resulted in contradicting and complex elements within Eastern Buddhist tradition. Along with the self-contradicting features within the Buddhist tradition, Buddhist text-based belief often was not congruous with actual practice of Buddhism. The self-contradicting features and the incongruity of religious belief and practice within the Buddhist tradition stand out when we critically examine the customary dietary practices of Buddhist tradition. Western animal right activists admire Eastern religious dietary practices of vegetarianism for reasons that vegetarianism saves animals from suffering and killing. However, in reality the practitioners of Eastern religion have not unanimously vegetarians. In addition, Eastern religious ethics of abstinence of meat-eating, unlike some Western animal rights activists’ assumption, ultimately aims to achieve self-realization and salvation, not for animal well-being. Yet, the Buddhist speciesism differs from Western speciesism in that the former is based upon the humans-nonhumans continuity whereas the latter on the separation, so that Western animal rights’ adaptation of the Buddhist anti-speciesism is not appropriate.