It's the Food Chain (unless some one wants to eat us!)
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

George Martin, Armoy Of The Revolution
October 2017

To those who justify killing and eating animals by saying, “It’s the food chain”: my question to you is as follows…

Are you a part of this food chain?

If you answered “yes”:

Then by your own logic, there would be nothing morally wrong with someone killing and eating you, and then justifying it by using your argument of “It’s the food chain”. After all, if you’re a part of this system, you don’t get to be exempt from the rules—doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid. You can’t just be part of a system which you’re not even willing to comply with. And if you’re off-limits, then the animals are off-limits too.

If your argument is, “Yeah but that’s cannibalism”: other species regularly cannibalise each other as part of the food chain, e.g. black widows—so a human killing and eating you is behaving no differently from other members of the very system you claim to be part of.

And appeals to legality (e.g. “But that’s illegal”) are not sufficient either—the laws of the food chain are the laws of nature, not the laws we abide by in human society.

Also, excusing yourself from these rules by saying “But I’m top of the food chain” is what’s know as a ‘might makes right’ fallacy, i.e. “I am in a position of power over the victim; therefore, it is okay for me to do what I want to them”—this is no different from a domestic abuser arguing that it is okay to beat his wife because men have evolved to be stronger than women.

If you answered “no”:

Then your argument of “It’s the food chain” is not relevant, and it begs the question as to why you even bothered using this justification in the first place.

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