This post is not about judgment of others. Rather, it’s about me trying to figure something out: If I am to eat and be a moral person, then what should I (not) eat?

Morality is tricky; life is full of gray. The following are some general principles.

Rule 1: Avoid Unnecessary Cruelty

My overall aim morally is to make the world a better place. A lot of that is simply avoiding hurting others. It’s harder than it seems. Our inattention or selfishness can cause others distress or even pain. Sometimes, we do so self-righteously as in the case of revenge. We don’t just try to avoid hurting other people, though; there are laws, many of them enacted relatively recently, to protect animals from harm. Even in the absence of such laws, intentionally hurting animals in public is likely, rightfully so, to gain you some serious criticism. If you hunt, however, like with eating animals, because of culture, where, until recently, most people have derived their values, it is considered ok.

With eating, I, too, try to avoid hurting others. However, I’m not very confident that what culture thinks is ok, is actually ok. There are many cultures, and many of them say conflicting things. Which one is right? Further, most of these cultures got it wrong on slavery, on women’s rights, on workers’ rights, and so on. In other words, cultures often contradict their own norms over time.

So on what foundation, then, should I base my moral framework? Sam Harris argues in The Moral Landscape that our morality is based on the well-being of conscious creatures. This is reflected, imperfectly, in most of our laws and customs. Murdering others is wrong because other people’s lives do not belong to us; we do not get to choose when or how someone dies. (There is an exception in that some people support capital punishment, which involves a trial and is then something, that’s supposed to be, conducted in the most humane way possible. There are good arguments on both sides of this issue; it isn’t a focus here.) As stated, we care about animals, too; they are conscious. Science, broadly, has shown us this unquestionably.

 I won’t entertain religious arguments here because, again, cultures vary and contradict themselves over time. I don’t find them to be reliable or persuasive.

Clearly, avoiding animal suffering is desirable morally. But how best to do this, and to what extent?

Well, it would make sense, if suffering is what is bad, to avoid killing and eating, thus providing an incentive for their exploitation, those creatures most likely to suffer. We can’t experience their pain, but their physiology and behavior make the salience of their suffering rather conclusive. I’m no expert. But I think it’s relatively safe to assume that those who have more in common with us are more likely to share in our capacity to suffer. There’s just so much we know as a species about brains to deny its significance in this regard. So, eating apes, for example, would be out of the question for me. Dogs and pigs are not just sentient but actually fairly smart, as non-human animals go, and dolphins, whales, magpies, octopuses, and so on. Surely, I’d want to avoid eating intelligent animals, animals who appear to have more authorship of their actions and can make, seemingly, greater connections with each other and suffer more. Elephants, for example, seem to mourn their dead.

With other, less intelligent animals, it’s harder to tell how much they can suffer. My intuition here is that there is a spectrum of suffering, just as there is likely one of consciousness; evidence to this comes from not only behavior but also from the varying brain structures of different creatures and their correlation to intelligence.  

So where would I draw the line? I’d err on the side of compassion. If it has a brain, I’m not likely to eat it. This thinking, linking brains to consciousness, may prove false in the future, but it’s all I reliably have right now. I must eat something, of course. Plants, say, don’t have a brain but exhibit interesting, perhaps even intelligent, processes (though, this does not prove consciousness and, hence, suffering). Mussels and oysters, which I don’t currently eat, don’t have a brain but have clumps of ganglia. All of this is complex and nuanced. Therefore, I hesitate to condemn others for what they eat, except if they, for instance, really like eating chimp.

Another complexity comes in with animal products, such as milk, honey, cheese, and butter. Again, I try to avoid these as they involve sentient creatures. I’m not perfect, however; the following rules below help to explain.

Rule 2: Promote Physical Health

As an individual, I find it my priority to look out for my own health. That means, I must eat, or I’ll die. And I must eat well enough that I do not get sick or cannot live a quality life. The question, for me, has to do with optimization. How much will I weigh the healthiest thing I could eat versus the above criterion of avoiding animal suffering?

Let’s make this super easy to illustrate a point. If eating babies was considered the best diet a human could engage in, adding years to one’s life, I would not partake. (I know, easy to say, right?) It’s a silly example because it’s hard to conceptualize how such a practice might develop to become culturally acceptable. Jonathon Swift knew this well when he penned “A Modest Proposal.” But the example illustrates starkly how optimal health cannot be one’s main priority if one is to be an ethical person.

So, how much should health matter? This depends on, for me, how healthy I can be while following Rule 1. I’m constantly learning about nutrition, but it seems I can be very healthy with my current diet, which is mostly vegan. I do eat eggs, however. Why? I have noticed I feel better when I do. I believe I can minimize animal suffering with the types of eggs I buy. And the B vitamins, choline and fat from the eggs, limited to two per day, five days a week, help me in such a way that make it worth it. I may discontinue this practice in the future if I can figure out a more ethical and effective way to get such nutrients into my body. (Egg production can invovle some incredible cruelty; I try to be selective and stay informed.)

It’s come to my attention that eating fish, or some sea life, might improve my health due to, generally, it being a good source of essential fatty acids, iron, and B and D vitamins, things that, in vegan diets, aren’t usually highly accessible. Fish, for now, is out of the question for me. They exhibit some intelligent behavior. They seem capable of suffering. That doesn’t mean I think they’re equivalent to humans. I would kill a fish before a person without hesitation. But, again, I want to exercise caution and err on compassion. Why would I choose to inflict suffering when there is no need? Currently, I supplement and feel good. But I wonder if I could feel better. There is some sea life I am considering, such as mussels and oysters. I would like to do more research.

There is no one answer to how much you should value your health over potentially harming another sentient creature. It is a matter of personal tolerance and reasoning. I am skeptical, however, of people who say they have to eat meat or they feel bad. Maybe. But it’s an awfully convenient thing to say given how savory and convenient meat is.

I also don’t think one specific diet is best for everyone. We’re complicated. Men and women are different in some key ways. Women menstruate and give birth. So, their bodies may need more iron, say, than most men. Some people can’t eat gluten. Some get sick from eating corn. Broadly, though, eating vegetables is healthy.

Rule 3: Promote Mental Health

There is another aspect of health that gets overlooked sometimes. I want to give it the proper import. And that’s mental well-being.

I would not, for example, engage in veganism if I were living in a rural part of the Dominican Republic, my mother’s birth country, and didn’t have much means. It would be too hard; I would be limited most of the time to staple foods. Even if I were willing to sacrifice some nutrition, it would cause me a great deal of stress to not only have to find things to eat that are vegan everywhere I go but to eat the same, relatively, bland foods all the time (since I would likely be limited in variety).

Too much stress has deleterious effects on our health. Some stress is ok. It encourages us to try, to have discipline. But it being inconvenient is no excuse for someone living in a big city, say, to give up on not eating meat. 

So, how do I incorporate this rule into my diet, while still respecting Rules 1 and 2. Well, here are potential stressors: not being able to eat when hungry or share in a meal, lack of flavor or variety in food, and complexity of rules. When all these mount up, it can become too stressful. For example, if I were traveling to a developing country, I wouldn’t try to be a raw vegan. That’s just me. Here’s another. If it’s my birthday, a celebration for someone I care about who isn’t vegan, or I’m taking such a person out to dinner, I’ll allow myself to eat things with dairy or eggs and not worry about it too much because I know, every other day, I am adhering to Rules 1 and 2. I still wouldn’t eat meat, however, in such cases; I don’t really see the need to, unless I were literally starving and that’s all there was. I wouldn’t feel bad about it either. There’d be no need to.

Ethics, for me, is not about absolutes; it’s about intention. I try, every day, to be good honestly and whole-heartedly, understanding, to borrow a phrase, the flesh is weak. What more can I ask of myself or of others?