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Under Discussion: Aristotelian Temperance and Cultured Meat

photograph of raw steak arranged on butcher block with cleaver and greenery

This piece is part of an Under Discussion series. To read more about this week’s topic and see more pieces from this series visit Under Discussion: In Vitro Meat.

On the 19th of December, so-called “cultured meat” was listed for the first time on a restaurant menu when the Singaporean eatery 1880 began offering lab-grown chicken from the American company Eat Just. Unlike its standard counterpart, an ingredient like cultured meat (also sometimes called “in vitro” meat) is not harvested from the dead body of an animal raised for slaughter, but is literally grown in a cultured solution much like a petri dish (hence the name “cultured”). While meat-substitutes of various types have become increasingly popular in recent years, this newly-approved product goes one step further: rather than simply aiming to mimic the flavor and texture of meat with plant-based ingredients, cultured meat is biologically (and, by most reports, experientially) identical to “meat” as typically conceived — it is simply not meat grown in the normal way.

For many, cultured meat offers one of the most economical and practical methods for potentially dismantling the ethical scourge that is the industrial factory farming system (responsible as it is for the annual torture and death of billions of chickens, cows, pigs, and more). If cultured meat can be produced economically at a scale sufficient to satisfy popular demands for meat products, then consumers might well be able to stubbornly maintain their meat-eating habits without requiring the suffering and death of so many creatures each year. From a utilitarian perspective, the moral calculation is clear: to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, we seemingly must pull the switch and convert our societal habits from eating meat to eating cultured meat.

But, this leaves open alternative questions about the ethics of eating cultured meat. For example, even if it’s true that cultured meat could offer a viable method for satisfying culinary desires for meat in a way that requires comparably little animal death, that does little to address the problem of having those desires in the first place.

In a recent article, Raja Halwani argues that the Aristotelian virtue of temperance gives us two ways of thinking about how to consider our meat-eating desires: as a matter of desiring the wrong object or as a matter of desiring the right object in the wrong way. As Aristotle himself explains in the Nicomachean Ethics, the temperate person:

“neither enjoys the things that the self-indulgent man enjoys most—but rather dislikes them—nor in general the things that he should not, nor anything of this sort to excess, nor does he feel pain or craving when they are absent, or does so only to a moderate degree, and not more than he should, nor when he should not, and so on” (emphasis added).

While temperance is often considered primarily as a matter of the latter practice — that is, as a restraint on the uncontrolled pursuit of our desires of taste (as exemplified perhaps most infamously in the American Temperance movement) — Aristotle also points out that the temperate person will lack a taste for things that should not be desired.

That is to say, it is one thing to desire something inappropriate while consciously restraining yourself from acting on that desire, while it is quite another to simply not desire the inappropriate thing at all. Imagine, for example, that Moe is a person who (for some reason) desires to murder a series of innocent people in some horrifically gruesome manner. Although he imagines that he would feel great pleasure at committing murder (and, indeed, takes pleasure simply in his imagination of doing so), Moe knows that acting on those murderous desires would be wrong, so he works hard to suppress them and (thankfully) never actually kills anyone. Calvin, in contrast, lacks the desire to murder anyone and, therefore, never commits murder. While it is true that, on one level, Moe and Calvin are the same — neither of them is a murderer — it is also the case that we could say that Calvin is better than Moe in at least some way.

To Aristotle, Moe’s case evidences a kind of continence insofar as Moe has mastered control of his improper desires (because he desires the wrong thing — namely, murder); as Aristotle says, the continent person “knowing that his appetites are bad, refuses on account of his rational principle to follow them.” This means that Moe also demonstrates a lack of what Nicolas Bommarito has described as a kind of “inner virtue” insofar as Moe’s tendency to feel pleasure at even just imaginary murder manifests “morally important cares or concerns” — in this case, they are “morally important” precisely because they are unethical. So, while it is true that we should also recognize Moe’s conscious restraint as proof of separate moral virtues (assuming that his restraint is borne from more than simple self-preservation or a desire to avoid punishment), it is still the case that Moe’s murderous desires are vicious.

What, then, do we make of cultured meat?

Although Halwani does not specifically discuss in vitro meat, he mentions briefly that it “might even be that the temperate person would not desire fake meat processed to look and taste like common forms of meat, such as the Impossible Burger, given that they imitate the kind of meat produced through a cruel history of suffering and death.” Or, like Rossi argued here at the Prindle Post, if cultured meat continues to encourage popular attitudes or perspectives of animals as “edible,” then it might well be serving to perpetuate a less-than-ideal set of desires, even if there are few direct problems with a tasty meal of ethically-produced in vitro meat. Like Halwani points out, temperate individuals might well be morally required to forego various aesthetic pleasures “when they come at the expense of immoral actions,” but the point is that the truly temperate person would not suffer from desires for immoral objects in the first place.

In effect, cultured meat could be promoting a structural sort of continence for our diets that recognizes the moral harms of our current food production methods and so acts to restrain them without doing anything to dissipate the original problematic desires themselves.

Admittedly, I’m taking for granted here that the currently standard system of raising creatures in captivity and subjecting them to immense pain simply for the purpose of consuming their flesh is a moral abomination, regardless of how tasty that flesh might be. If cultured meat offers the most realistic opportunity to prevent widespread nonhuman animal suffering, then that alone is sufficient reason to explore its viability. But the implications of our diet for our character (and what we care about) is also important to consider, even once creaturely suffering is diminished.

In short: cultured meat might indeed do well to prevent future bloodshed, but it cannot, on its own, establish a robustly virtuous culture that lacks the desire for the products of bloodshed.

Knowing What You Don’t Know

A photograph of the word "knowledge engraved in white sandstone

It’s inevitable that there will be some things that you think you know that you don’t actually know: everyone gets overconfident and makes mistakes sometimes, and every one of us have had to occasionally eat crow. However, a recent study reports that a significant number of people in the United States face this problem of thinking that they know more than they do about a number of key scientific issues. One of these beliefs is not terribly surprising: while the existence of human-made climate change is overwhelmingly supported by scientists, beliefs about climate change diverge from the scientific consensus largely along partisan lines.

Another issue that sees a significant amount of divergence between laypeople and scientists, however, is a belief about the safety of genetically modified foods, or GM foods for short. The study reports that while there is significant scientific consensus that GM foods are “safe to consume” and “have the potential to provide substantial benefits to humankind”, the predominant view amongst the general population in the US is precisely the opposite: while 88% of surveyed scientists said that GM foods were safe, only 37% of laypeople said they thought the same. Participants in the study were asked to rate the strength of their opposition to GM foods, as well as the extent of their concern with such foods. They were then asked to rate how confident they were in their understanding of various issues about GM foods, and were also asked a series of questions testing their general scientific knowledge. The crucial result from the study was that those who expressed the most extreme opposition to GM foods “knew the least” when it came to general scientific knowledge, but thought that “they knew the most.” In other words, extreme opponents of GM foods were seriously bad at knowing what they know and what they didn’t know.

The consequences of having extreme attitudes toward issues that one is also overconfident about can be significant. As the Nature study reports, the benefits of GM foods are potentially substantial, being able to provide “increased nutritional content, higher yield per acre, better shelf life and crop disease resistance.” Other scientists report numerous other benefits, including aiding those in developing countries in the production of food. However, a number of groups, including Greenpeace, have presented various opposing views to the use of GM foods and GMOs (genetically modified organisms) in general, despite the backlash from numerous scientists. While there are certainly many open questions about GM foods and GMOs in general, maintaining one’s beliefs in opposition to the consensus of experts seems like an irresponsible thing to do.

Apart from the potential negative consequences of holding such views, failing to properly take account of evidence seems to point to a more personal flaw in one’s character. Indeed, a number of philosophers have argued that humility, i.e. a proper recognition of one’s own strengths and limitations, is a virtue generally worth pursuing. People who lack intellectual humility – those who are overly boastful, or who refuse to acknowledge their own shortcomings regarding what they do not know – often seem to be suffering from a defect in character.

As the authors of the Nature study identify, a “traditional view in the public understanding of scientific literature is that public attitudes that run counter to scientific consensus reflect a knowledge deficit.” As such, a focus of those working in scientific communication has been on the education of the public. However, the authors also note that such initiatives “have met with limited success,” and their study might suggest why: because those with the most extreme viewpoints also tend to believe that they know much more than they do, they will likely prove unreceptive to attempts at education, since they think they know well enough already. Instead, the authors suggest that a “prerequisite to changing people’s views through education may be getting them to first appreciate gaps in their knowledge.”

It’s not clear, though, what it would take to get someone who greatly overestimates how well they understand something to appreciate the actual gaps in their knowledge. Indeed, it seems that it might be just as difficult to try to tell someone who is overly confident that they are lacking information as it is to try to teach them about something they already take themselves to know. There is also a question of whether such people will trust the experts who are trying to point out those gaps: if I take myself to be extremely knowledgeable about a topic then presumably I will consider myself to possess a degree of expertise, in which case it seems unlikely that I will listen to anyone else who calls themselves an authority.

As The Guardian reports, compounding the problem are two cognitive biases that can stand in the way of those with extreme viewpoints from changing their minds: “active information avoidance,” in which information is rejected because it conflicts with one’s beliefs, and the “backfire effect,” in which being presented with information that conflicts with one’s beliefs actually results in one becoming more confident in one’s beliefs, rather than less. All of these factors together make it very difficult to determine how, exactly, people with extreme viewpoints can be convinced that they should change their beliefs in the face of conflicting evidence.

Perhaps, then, part of the problem with those who take an extreme stance on an issue while greatly overestimate their understanding of it is again a problem of character: such individuals might lack a degree of humility, at least when it comes to a specific topic. In addition to attempting to address specific gaps in one’s knowledge, then, we might also look toward having people attend to their own intellectual limitations more generally. We are all, after all, subject to biases, false beliefs, and general limitations in our knowledge and understanding, although it is sometimes easy to lose sight of this fact.

Lab-Grown Meat: A Moral Revolution?

A close-up photo of a hamburger.

In 2013, Dutch scientists announced that they had produced a lab-grown hamburger.  Scientists generated the muscle cells comprising the burger—no animals were killed as part of the process.  Many are hopeful that this “cultured meat” is the solution to many societal problems.  Earlier this year, author Paul Shapiro and director of The Humane Society released a book called Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals will Revolutionize Dinner and The World. The book provides a history of the development of meat produced in labs and discusses the moral benefits of a future that includes meat produced in this way.

Continue reading “Lab-Grown Meat: A Moral Revolution?”

A March for Science, or for Something Else?

A worldwide march in favor of science was successfully carried out on April 22. It was convoked by a wide range of groups, to be held on Earth Day. The initiative came out as a result of major concerns over President Donald Trump’s policies, which include the disbanding of the Environmental Protection Agency, budget cuts in scientific research, and the elimination of scientists’ roles as advisors in the government.

The march was allegedly non-partisan. But, there are plenty of reasons to think otherwise. Critics of the march have seen it as leftist ideology masquerading as legitimate scientific activity. If, indeed, the march is more about politics and less about science, then that should be of concern to the scientific community.

Make no mistake: President Trump is no friend of science. His populist style appeals to unverified claims (or, as it is now called, “post-truth”), the very antithesis of any scientific procedure. His strongest base of supporters is made up of climate change deniers, creationists and anti-intellectualists who see no significance in scientific activity.

These people, however, need to be brought to the light of science. Some of these people may initially understand the importance of scientific activity, but ultimately become disappointed with scientists, because they seem them as too far to the left. They do have a point. To some extent, science has been hijacked by leftist ideology. If the scientific establishment wants to regain the trust of ordinary folks, then it must do a better job of purging its ideological bias.

Take, for instance, the choice of the day for the march. It was celebrated on Earth Day, an obvious appeal to the importance of discussions on climate change. No serious scientist would disagree that, indeed, global warming is a problem. But, what must be done about it is much more open to discussion. Scientists such as Matt Ridley and Bjorn Lomborg have long acknowledged that global warming is a problem, but at the same time, reasonably argue that short-term initiatives on carbon emission reduction (such the Paris Agreement) are far more harmful for the welfare of humanity. Fossil fuels do contribute to global warming, but they save lots of lives, especially in the developing world.

Sure, something must be done, but reducing economic growth, for the time being, is not a rational solution. A more reasonable alternative, as Lomborg has long proposed, is to invest in research in order to find more efficient ways of developing clean energy without reducing economic growth. Solar panels are not enough. The prospect of nuclear power is much more promising in this regard. Yet, for some strange reason, most ecological groups oppose it, and the scientific establishment does not seem to care. This plays into the right-wing narrative that so-called “science” is more about ideology than about facts.  

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of people who went to the march in favor of science have a stand that goes far beyond the mere scientific facts on global warming. They make the unwarranted leap from scientific facts to a defense of leftist environmental policy. This is no way to bring Trump’s supporters to the light of science.

Global warming is not the only area where leftist ideology masquerades as science. Take evolutionary theory. Sure, Bible-quoting Creationists feel more at home at a Trump rally than at a scientific lecture on some college campus. And, of course, it is easy to mock people who believe the world is only 6,000 years old and want intelligent design to be taught in public schools. But, unfortunately, the scientific establishment fails to oppose other types of Creationists, the so-called “Creationists of the Mind” (the term was created by scientist Robert Kurzban). This brand of Creationists is made up of leftists who, for some strange reason, believe that Darwinism applies to the body, but not to the mind. They oppose evolutionary psychology on the grounds that it is racist, sexist and an intellectual tool to justify capitalism’s status quo. These Creationists of the Mind were the instigators of the firing of Larry Summers from the presidency of Harvard University, simply because he argued that in some areas of intellectual achievement, women are at a natural disadvantage (as evolutionary psychology claims). This bias in opposing one type of Creationism, but not the other, again plays into the right-wing narrative that the scientific establishment pays more attention to ideology than to facts.

Or, take GMOs. Humans have been genetically modifying organisms for at least 10,000 years. Now, thanks to impressive advances in genetics, we have the technology to do so even more efficiently. It is not hyperbole to claim that GMOs have the potential to solve the problem of world hunger once and for all. And yet, the scientific establishment is too timid to fully embrace GMO research and strongly refute those environmentalists who oppose these technologies (although it must be acknowledged that more than 100 Nobel laureates recently signed a letter defending GMOs).

The recent march in favor of science on Earth Day tried to build the narrative that anti-science is exclusively right-wing. That is clearly not the case. Alex Berezow and Hank Campbell make an extensive argument exposing the fallacies of the anti-scientific left, in their acclaimed book Science Left Behind. The scientific establishment should take note. Science is worth marching for. But, when that march becomes more of a ruse to propagate leftist ideology, it is ethically objectionable. Science needs all the support it can get, and it needs to persuade people to abandon their anti-scientific view of the world. But, when the scientific establishment is itself sequestered by some people who seem to care more about ideology than about facts, it fails in its attempt to bring the likes of Creationists and climate change deniers, to the light of science.

Modifying the Mosquito

Never in recent memory have the bounds of human impact on the world felt so wide. At a time when researchers are finding cans of soda at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, and scientists are grappling with the possibility of creating human-animal “chimera” tissues for study,  our ability to influence the world around us seems practically unparalleled. And when it comes to dealing with a public health crisis brought on by one of nature’s most annoying pests, it would seem that these limits may soon expand once again.

Continue reading “Modifying the Mosquito”

GMOs, Salmon and Overfishing

The ability of humans to genetically modify the resources we use for food has changed the way in which we view and interact with the environment and natural resources. In the past, seeds for agricultural staples, like corn and soybeans, have undergone genetic modification to improve growth and yield and make the most efficient use of agricultural inputs.  While controversy still surrounds the issue of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), many argue that they must be part of a sustainable food future in which humans make the most of every developed acre.   Continue reading “GMOs, Salmon and Overfishing”