Touchstone: Animal Ethics and Desire’s Role in Ethics
President Trump’s expressed attitudes and actions towards immigrants revolt me, and viscerally offend my deepest convictions abut American values. (As do many other of his attitudes and actions.) Yet when I encounter someone else who shares my feelings about Trump, I am brought back to my senses. For chances are very high that that someone else who is so disgusted with Trump is a meat-eater, given that so few people in this country are not, and furthermore feels little if any compunction about it, or, even if she does, has no intention whatever of ceasing to eat animals, not to mention diary, eggs, and honey. So I ask myself: How can moral feelings be taken seriously, or at least at face value? For if someone outraged by Trump’s behavior toward immigrants, or women, et al., can be relatively indifferent to the (in)human treatment of other animals – which is vastly more horrific to boot -- what does this say about the true basis of that outrage? Veganism has become my moral touchstone.