The Imperative for Moral Consistency

New York, N.Y. At The Steward Report, we aim to advocate for justice and highlight pressing issues that demand our attention and action. One such issue is the moral consideration of all beings, including animals. Moral consistency forms the basis for social harmony and without it, injustice, violence, and abuse of power are inevitable.

Humans’ ability to be empathetic and consider how our actions impact others, comes with a responsibility to respect all life, including animals. Exploiting animals is immoral because it devalues their life and treats them as commodities rather than sentient beings. The exploitation of animals includes but is not limited to, factory farming, fishing, testing, and zoos. Humans are only one of approximately millions of classified species on earth, and yet, according to the USDA, we kill approximately 23 million land animals every day.

Stop for a moment to consider this number. We are killing thousands of Chickens, Cows, Sheep, Ducks, Goats, and Pigs every minute, each one, a unique individual. In addition to being murdered at a fraction of their natural life span, they are routinely harmed and traumatized, such as being forcibly impregnated and forced to live in cramped cages.

Animal sentience has been proven many times over, meaning that, like humans, they have unique personalities, feel pain, and have an intrinsic will to live. By imagining what it would be like to be in their position, we immediately understand the urgency to live free.

Although our culture has led us to believe that animal protein (i.e. meat, dairy, and eggs) is necessary for our health, the nutritional adequacies and benefits of plants have also been widely proven. For us to be morally consistent, we must stop exploiting animals. When individuals become vegan, they recognize the intrinsic rights of all animals and abstain from using animals for food, fashion, entertainment, or any other purpose.

In addition to personal responsibility, we need systemic change as governments play a crucial role in the exploitation of animals. One example of this is the US Farm Bill, a package of legislation passed roughly every five years, that gives taxpayer money to subsidize animal agriculture, greatly offsetting and obscuring the actual costs of breeding and raising animals for food.

As human animals, our capacity for empathy, justice, and self-awareness necessitates a responsibility to act morally, respecting the rights and dignity of all living beings. To build a just and non-violent society with liberty for all, we must be morally consistent. If you would like to learn about the reality of farm animals, you can watch a free documentary online called Dominion, available at here (www.dominionmovement.com).