The whole “bovine” joke was hilarious on one hand and a little horrifying on the other. It got me thinking: how would I feel if an animal I was about to consume came up to me enthusiastically conveying its consent for being eaten? I will be horrified, just like Arthur! But why?
Will it be better to eat against its consent instead? Why?
Then… what about salad’s consent?! Interesting thought experiment…
I am presenting the joke in the form of three extracts from the text:
Extract 1:
"A large dairy animal approached Zaphod Beeblebrox’s table, a large fat meaty quadruped of the bovine type with large watery eyes, small horns and what might almost have been an ingratiating smile on its lips. “Good evening,” it lowed and sat back heavily on its haunches, “I am the main Dish of the Day. May I interest you in parts of my body?” It harrumphed and gurgled a bit, wriggled its hind quarters into a more comfortable position and gazed peacefully at them. Its gaze was met by looks of startled bewilderment from Arthur and Trillian, a resigned shrug from Ford Prefect and naked hunger from Zaphod Beeblebrox. “Something off the shoulder perhaps?” suggested the animal, “Braised in a white wine sauce?” “Er, your shoulder?” said Arthur in a horrified whisper. "
Extract 2:
“‘You mean this animal actually wants us to eat it?’ whispered Trillian to Ford. ‘Me?’ said Ford, with a glazed look in his eyes. ‘I don’t mean anything.’ ‘That’s absolutely horrible,’ exclaimed Arthur, ‘the most revolting thing I’ve ever heard.’ ‘What’s the problem, Earthman?’ said Zaphod, now transferring his attention to the animal’s enormous rump. ‘I just don’t want to eat an animal that’s standing there inviting me to,’ said Arthur, ‘it’s heartless.’ ‘Better than eating an animal that doesn’t want to be eaten,’ said Zaphod. ‘That’s not the point,’ Arthur protested. Then he thought about it for a moment. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘maybe it is the point. I don’t care, I’m not going to think about it now. I’ll just . . . er . . .’”
Extract 3:
“I think I’ll just have a green salad,’ he muttered. ‘May I urge you to consider my liver?’ asked the animal. ‘It must be very rich and tender by now, I’ve been force-feeding myself for months.’ ‘A green salad,’ said Arthur emphatically. ‘A green salad?’ said the animal, rolling his eyes disapprovingly at Arthur. ‘Are you going to tell me,’ said Arthur, ‘that I shouldn’t have green salad?’ ‘Well,’ said the animal, ‘I know many vegetables that are very clear on that point. Which is why it was eventually decided to cut through the whole tangled problem and breed an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly and distinctly. And here I am.’ It managed a very slight bow. ‘Glass of water, please,’ said Arthur.”
I would say the heart of the issue is in whether the animal has capacity to consent or not, rather than whether it is giving that consent.
Once it has capacity to choose, I don’t want to eat it. Humans prefer to believe animals are not sufficiently aware of death for this to matter.
Once we get into the issue that the animal was bred to respond this way, I’m back to questioning whether it really does have a choice and I’m doubting its consent, no matter how enthusiastically offered
I also felt that if the animal is bred to give consent then the consent is longer valid (in my opinion). I prefer to eat my meat which is not capable of giving consent.
Well your meat isn’t capable of giving consent because we don’t ask it.
Animals being bred to give consent making it invalid is an interesting ethics question, especially because that’s what we’ve technically done to dogs to domesticate them. However, if the animal is going to be farmed anyway, it should be considered unequivocally better for it to consent to it, because that means it’s happy to do so. Sure, we’ve technically programmed it to think that way, but it’s better than the alternative.
Obviously conversation isn’t an answer but I wonder what methods we might use to get an idea of whether a cow or a chicken wants to die?
Well I think it is the answer - you need to build a form of communication with them to work out what their thoughts are. We’ve kind of done it with some animals, and are working on it with others.
Could we not get an insight by focusing on feelings rather than thoughts? We already possess the skills and equipment to make sense of their feelings in a situation I believe.
That’s a good idea