One of the moral reasons why many people refuse to eat meat is that animals suffer. Therefore, it is a very interesting moral dilemma (especially since it could occur soon) to wonder if many of these people would then choose to eat meat that "wants to be eaten" or "feels pleasure instead of pain."

This is what is proposed, for example, by the philosopher Julian Baggini In his book titled, precisely, The pig that wanted to be ham.

The chicken with a carrot conscience

If, thanks to genetic engineering, we manage to conceive chickens with the same level of consciousness as a carrot, Would there be something morally objectionable about eating them? What would be wrong with depriving those chickens of an existence of which they have never been aware?

There would also be the possibility of turning the pain of a pig in a slaughterhouse into simple pleasure. Could we eat a creature like that? What if the pig wanted to be part of a feast of sausages, ham or crispy bacon? Could we deny him such a desire, such an aspiration, such an orgasmic pleasure... especially if we also feel it, eating their meat in a clear win-win?

In Xataka Science

[Books that inspire us] 'The pig that wanted to be ham', by Julian Baggini

satirical science fiction writer Douglas Adams imagined something like that in The restaurant at the end of the world, where its protagonist, Arthur Dent, he was horrified at the prospect of eating a pig called Priscilla with whom he had fraternized the previous week. The sow, in fact, was intelligent and could talk. But I also wanted, needed to be food. Dent doesn't want to, but Zaphod Beeblebrox He objects that surely it won't be "better than eating an animal that doesn't want to be eaten."

We could also reply that we are violating the natural order of things. Or that we simply feel moral disgust. However, at first we can affirm that Agriculture itself also disrupts the natural order, because varieties are selected and produced so that they grow massively, also attacking the environment. The second thing is that, in the beginning, most of us also felt moral disgust for transplants or transfusions, but that is no longer the case: we can educate our disgust.

In Xataka Science

How agriculture made us shorter than we were

What do you think? How would you approach this dilemma? Would it be the end of vegetarianism? I elaborate a little on this dilemma (eating meat) in the following video:

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Would you eat a chicken that doesn't feel pain? And a pig that wants to be eaten?

was originally published in

Xataka Science

by
Sergio Parra

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