Download Eaton, David: Incorporating the Other:Val

MAVE Dissertation,
Lancaster University 2001
Incorporating the Other:Val Plumwood’s
Integration of Ethical Frameworks
David Eaton
Supervisor: Clare Palmer
A dualism is more than a relation of dichotomy,
difference, or non-identity, and more than a simple
hierarchical relationship. In dualistic construction, as in
hierarchy, the qualities (actual or supposed), the culture,
the values and the areas of life associated with the
dualised other are systematically and pervasively
constructed and depicted as inferior. Hierarchies,
however, can be seen as open to change, as contingent
and shifting. But once the process of domination forms
culture and constructs identity, the inferiorised group
(unless it can marshall cultural resources for resistance)
must internalise this inferiorisation in its identity and
collude in this low valuation, honouring the values of the
centre, which form the dominant social values.
Val Plumwood*
Contents:
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*
Val Plumwood and Carol J. Adams – Background to the Discussion
Adams’ Theory: Ethnocentric Grand Narrative or Culturally Situated
Tactic:
Refuting Charges of Universalism
Culturally Situated Tactics and Consciousness Raising
Clarification of Meanings:
“Ontologizing”
“Contextualizing”
“Alienation”
Nature, Culture and Food
Ethical Dualism and the Plant-Animal Boundary
Disgust
Conclusion
Bibliography
Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (1990), London: Routledge, p.47
2
Val Plumwood and Carol J. Adams
- Background to the Discussion
The purpose of the following is to explore and hopefully illuminate an academic
debate between the ideas of two ecofeminist writers around the issue of the appropriate
theoretical basis from which to improve our interactions (and particularly our food
relationships) with nonhuman animals. Carol Adams has, over several books and
essays, developed an analysis of animal exploitation that ties this particular form of
domination to the exploitation of women in developed western societies. She argues
that these two forms of domination are inextricably linked under patriarchal social
structures. In this, her analysis appears at first to concur with the assertions of Val
Plumwood, in her book Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, that patriarchal thought is
structured around a series of mutually reinforcing dualisms, including male/female,
human/nonhuman and culture/nature, and that these dualisms, forming what she calls
“a system, an interlocking structure”, provide the conceptual scheme against which
human male privilege is established1. Plumwood, however, recently published a paper2
which was highly critical of Adams’ stance, particularly her espousal of what
Plumwood calls “ontological vegetarianism” or “ontological veganism”3, and which
proposed a different framework within which to envisage an improved
human-nonhuman relationship, most specifically around the issue of the moral
legitimacy of using animals as food. In this paper Plumwood accuses Adams of,
amongst other things, universalising a perspective rooted in western alienation from
nature, and therefore of an offensive cultural imperialism which ignores the social,
economic and ecological realities of life for people living in unprivileged, non-western
situations. This critique unfolds within the laying out of a theory in which humans must
recognize that all beings, themselves included, are potential food for others, but that
claims to resist (at the conceptual and practical levels) the excesses of instrumental use
and the accompanying denial mechanisms about animal suffering which arise in the
context of economically rationalised corpse production and commodification in
developed societies.
Plumwood’s theory achieves a fairly convincing synthesis of concern for
animals, environment and the integrity of non-western social and ecological
relationships. It is a more ambitious and philosophically coherent theory than that
which Adams puts forward. It is troubling, however, that Plumwood’s critique of
Adams seems to represent Adams’ ideas in a way which is little recognisable from
Adams’ own writing. They both approach the issue of human relationships with
nonhumans from different directions, and can therefore be expected to have differing
concerns, to suggest different solutions. Plumwood’s direct attack on Adams’ position,
however, is unexpectedly aggressive, and my reading of Adams’ work has lead me to
believe that Plumwood actually misrepresents Adams’ thinking on a number of points.
In addition, Plumwood does not consider some important issues arising from Adams’
work that offer an implicit critique of her theory.
In what follows, I hope to offer a fairly close textual comparison of the writings
of Plumwood and Adams in order to clarify the points of dispute. This will involve
1
Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (1990), London: Routledge, p.43
Val Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks for Animals, Humans and Nature: A Critical Feminist
Eco-Socialist Analysis” (2000), Ethics and the Environment, 5(2), p.285-322
3
Adams suggests that the principal solution to the problem of the systematic abuse of food animals is for
people to stop “ontologising” animals as edible. Plumwood coins the term “ontological vegetarianism”
for this idea.
2
3
investigating Plumwood’s charges of universalism, ethnocentrism, lack of
contextualization, “alienation” (a problematic term that is used rather indiscriminately
by Plumwood), dualistic thinking and ecological insensitivity. I will attempt to show
that Adams is not nearly as guilty of these charges as Plumwood alleges, and that many
uncomfortable questions are raised by Plumwood’s critique.
Central to my argument will be the claim that Adams’ vegetarian theory is not
presented as a universally applicable theory. Plumwood asserts consistently that
Adams’ presents her ideas as culturally universal, and this is the root of several of the
charges mentioned above. I will attempt to show not only that Adams explicitly states
the specific cultural context that she is concerned with, but that this is also quite clearly
implicit in the majority of her analyses. A related major point of misunderstanding
between Plumwood and Adams arises in Adams’ suggestion that animals should not be
“ontologised” as edible. Plumwood takes this to be the assertion of a universal
philosophical truth, and proceeds to demolish it as such. I will attempt to show that this
suggestion is presented by Adams more as a culturally situated tactic to resist the
hegemonic discourse of “meat” as an inevitable component of the human diet – a
discourse that assists in the psychological avoidance of full knowledge of what “meat”
entails. This whole issue is vital to understanding Plumwood’s charge that Adams’
theory is offensively ethnocentric and culturally hegemonic.
I will also attempt to clarify the way in which concepts such as “ontologizing”,
“contextualizing” and “alienation” may be interpreted to mean different things with
reference to the writing of Plumwood and Adams. These are very important terms for
this debate, but carry baggage with different internal distributions of weight for each
theorist. Another important area of misunderstanding is the relationship between nature
and culture: Plumwood considers that “ontological vegetarians” envisage this
relationship dualistically whereas I hope to show that this is not the case. Plumwood
attempts to highlight the presence of another dualistic conceptualisation (the
plant-animal boundary) in Adams’ theory and I will claim that this is a simplistic
analysis which arises from overly abstract philosophising, and resists embodied
knowledge of the way the world is structured.
My analysis will lay some strong accusations at Plumwood’s door, and it is
unfortunate that they arise in response to a theory which in many respects is visionary.
My problem lies not with the constructive proposals for integrated thinking that
Plumwood makes, but with the way in which Adams’ voice is distorted by this account.
There are important factors, however, emdedded in Plumwood’s thinking, which
suggest reasons for this attack. I will attempt to draw these out as the analysis
progresses.
Adams’ Theory: Ethnocentric Grand Narrative or
Situated Tactic?
Refuting Charges of Universalism
The most damaging attack that Plumwood makes on Adams’ theory is to claim
that it is presented as culturally universal and that Adams’ injunction against
ontologizing animals as edible is intended to apply to all humans, including indigenous
peoples who may depend on the consumption of animal food in order to obtain an
adequate diet. Plumwood therefore sees no problem in labelling Adams’ work as
“ethnocentric”. It is true that Adams is occasionally careless about specifying a
particular context for assertions, but reading her work as a whole makes it clear that she
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is addressing herself to a specific culture, and that her claims are not intended to be
interpreted as universal truths, or as the creation of a philosophical grand narrative
about humans and their proper relation to animals and nature. Plumwood’s ambitions
appear to lie in this direction and, as I will suggest later, this may be one dynamic
underlying her critique of Adams. In this section I will explore the charge of
universalism that Plumwood makes, and demonstrate that this is founded on a biased
reading of Adams’ work.
Plumwood claims that “Although Adams’s account focuses almost entirely on
the contemporary west, it is presented as culturally universal, an account of inevitable
and timeless ethical features of human predation”4. In much of Adams’ work it is clear
that her account is culturally specific. Problems may arise, however, when the cultural
context she refers to is not explicitly apparent, but is assumed by her to be implicitly
understood and is therefore not clearly stated. In such cases, it may be necessary to
review the surrounding discussion in order to clarify whether Adams is making
universal claims or not. Plumwood quotes very little material directly from Adams in
order to support the charges she makes, however the following two examples are
illustrative. Plumwood writes that:
The need for contextualization in terms of ecological, social and cultural
context is explicitly rejected by Adams in her claims that all humans are equally
positioned with respect to the need for animal food. Thus she claims that
“humans have the choice whether to eat animals or not” (Adams 1993, 206).
This claim, which is crucial to the ethical case, is made about humans in a
completely generalized and unmodified form, although it is clear that not all
humans do have this choice.5
I have been unable to find an example of Adams explicitly claiming that all humans are
equally positioned with respect to the need for animal food, although it is true that her
arguments only occasionally address themselves to the positioning of those who rely on
its consumption. However, the passage Plumwood quotes above is located within an
argument that feminist conferences should not serve “meat” to delegates. This is the
context of the quotation – a fact that Plumwood fails to mention when making that
quotation, and that is directly relevant to understanding it. Although Adams does not
specify at this point that the humans she refers to are not to include ones who are
currently situated in an ecological niche which requires them to eat animal flesh, it
seems unlikely that a conference would actually occur in such a situation. The words
immediately following those that Plumwood quotes make the context of Adams’ words
more apparent: “Humans have a choice whether to eat animals or not. Choosing to
purchase flesh at a supermarket or have it served at a conference represents human
agency”6.
Plumwood goes on to claim that
Adams appears to believe that eating animal food is as inessential in all cultural
and ethnic contexts as she takes it to be in her own. Explicitly rejecting any
exceptions to her strictures against animal use for nondominant cultures, Adams
states “We [feminists] do not embrace nondominant cultural traditions that, for
instance, oppress women”.7
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p.295
Ibid., p.305
6
Carol J. Adams, “The Feminist Traffic in Animals” in Greta Gaard (Ed.), Ecofeminsm, Women,
Animals, Nature (1993), Philadelphia: Temple University Press, p.206
7
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p.305
4
5
5
Adams’ discussion of whether feminist conferences should be vegetarian does include
statements that, taken out of context, may problematise my argument that her claims are
not universal claims. It is important to look closely at these, as with the passage
Plumwood refers to:
The position that feminist conferences (and theory) should be pluralistic also is
seen to be at odds with any universal claim for vegetarianism. Imposing one’s
dietary decision on all races or ethnic groups is viewed as racist, because the
inability to exercise personal food choices severs an individual from her
racial/ethnic tradition. I deeply respect the need to preserve nondominant
cultures. However, I do not believe that pluralism requires siding with
human-skin privilege in order to avoid white-skin privilege. We do not embrace
nondominant cultural traditions that, for instance, oppress women. An
unspoken “in-order-to” is buried in this assumption: We want feminism to be
pluralistic; in order for this to be, we must be species exclusive in our theory. 8
The use of the word “universal” in this extract is at first worrying, however the
purpose of the passage from which it is taken is primarily to illustrate the means by
which the desire for pluralism can become co-opted as a tactic to ensure that the issue of
whether an individual should eat animal flesh is maintained as a matter of
unproblematic personal preference in a way that would not be tolerated were it a human
justice issue. As Adams says, “Conventional wisdom implies that for the one issue to
prevail, the other must be kept in the realm of discursive privacy”9. Adams’ intention is
to destabilize this assumption by asserting the direct relevance of vegetarianism to the
feminist aim of resisting diverse forms of oppression, illustrating that to serve “meat” at
conferences represents short-sighted complicity in dominating structures. The
paradoxical nature of the claim for pluralism then becomes apparent: “pluralism
becomes a boundary enforcer rather than a boundary destabilizer”10. Adams goes on to
contextualise her analysis in a way which is ignored by Plumwood:
Through reprivatization, a universal vegetarianism is seen as a white woman’s
imposing her “dietary” concerns on women of color. However, since I am
arguing on behalf of vegetarian feminist conferences, let us agree that at present
the foods offered at most conferences represent the dominant culture. They
already ignore ethnic and racial traditions around food.11
The line that Adams treads in this discussion does occasionally appear rather fine,
however this is the closest that she comes to directly espousing a universal
vegetarianism, and to take her comments completely out of context, as Plumwood does,
is to misrepresent what she actually claims. Adams continues that “In addressing the
right of racial and ethnic groups to eat animals, we are not talking about food as
nutrition but food as ritual”12. This sentence does not suggest that we could never be
talking about food as nutrition, but that within the bounds of a discussion about the
meals provided at conferences, exemplary nutrition could be provided without recourse
to animal flesh. The implicit subtext of these words, contrary to what Plumwood
Adams, “Feminist Traffic”, p.211
Ibid., p.211
10
Ibid., p.211
11
Ibid., p.211
12
Ibid., p.211
8
9
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suggests, is that where adequate nutrition does require the eating of animals, then it
would be regrettable but not subject to ethical condemnation.
Other assertions by Plumwood are worth looking closely at, for example the
following:
Adams fails to distinguish between the concept of “meat” – a culturally specific
construction which as she shows involves high levels of commodification,
homogenisation, reduction, denial of kinship, and hyperseparation – and other
possible constructions of animals as edible food that do not have these features.
The term “meat” is used equivocally, and is ambiguous between being animal
food (edible), conceived in this culturally specific way as meat, and also as a
cultural generic term for any kind of animal food.13
Here Plumwood seems to believe that the analyses Adams puts forward of the way that
western culture constructs “meat” are intended to be applicable to all eating of animal
flesh. Plumwood gives no quotations or references in support of this interpretation. The
only case that could be made for her assertion being true, in the absence of any direct
textual evidence that Adams uses the term “meat” in this way, would be to argue that by
not clearly making the distinction that Plumwood identifies, Adams is implicitly
intending her culturally situated analysis to be extended universally. However, the
following passages from Adams’ work show a careful distinguishing between “meat”
that is produced in contemporary western contexts and that which is not:
Another example of the flight from specificity occurs when the term “meat
eating” is applied transhistorically, transculturally, implying that the means by
which “meat” is obtained have not changed so much that different terms are
needed, or else that the changes in the means of production are immaterial to a
discussion…. Those aspects unidentified or misidentified are then presumed to
be unproblematic or inconsequential.14
Or, to give a further example:
[Pat] Parker’s supper of meat is not the same meat as that consumed by her
ancestors, though they are classified as such. The meat she is eating comes from
a commodity, capitalist world in which the fourth stage of meat eating has
influenced the production of meat. Contemporary meat production methods
create an extreme difference between second and third stage meat eating, which
Parker’s ancestors would have known.15
These passages could perhaps be argued to have a vague ethnocentric bias because
(apart from the significant inclusion of the word “transculturally”) they appear to be
most specifically concerned with the historical development of meat eating in the west.
However, this is the stated context about which Adams is writing, and the distinctions
that she draws here quite clearly show that her understanding of the “culturally specific
construction” of “meat” is in no way intended to be universalised. One further long
quotation should serve to decisively refute Plumwood’s charges of crude
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p.296
Adams, “Feminist Traffic”, p.208-9
15
Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat (1990), Cambridge: Polity Press, p.153. Adams refers here to
“stages” of meat eating which consist of “(1) practically no meat eating, (2) eating meat of wild animals
and (3) eating meat of domesticated animals” (p.61), followed by the fourth, “commodity, capitalist”
stage referred to above.
13
14
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universalising; I will then explore in more depth the reasons why Adams’ culturally
situated theory is perhaps more appropriate than the kind of grand narrative that
Plumwood accuses her of creating, and attempts to create herself:
My argument about not using animals may be heard as one of ideological purity.
But it is not that. The instrumental view of animals that concerns me arises
within Western developed culture, in which a discourse of otherness has been
used to maintain dominance. My critique is aimed at that dominance. The
Cartesian dualism of human/animal, soul/body that inscribes animals as useable
is not a legacy of most native peoples. Conversations with native peoples will be
different because the ontological positioning of animals in their cultures is
different. It is not my goal to condemn the diet of the Inuit, nor weigh in against
the fishing rights struggles of native people in North America.16
Culturally Situated Tactics & Consciousness Raising
It should now be apparent that Adams’ theory, which Plumwood claims to be
“presented as culturally universal, an account of inevitable and timeless ethical features
of human predation”17 is in fact presented as what it is: a detailed focus on one
particularly abusive cultural context. Adams makes the claim that the abuses of animals
carried out in the contemporary western “meat” industry are a result of ontologising
them as edible, and that the appropriate way to resist the abuses is to resist the ontology
that underlies it. This is the element of her thinking that is most incompatible with
Plumwood’s, since Plumwood bases her theory on the idea that all living beings can,
and indeed should, legitimately be ontologised as edible for other beings, including
humans. (Although Plumwood does not suggest that humans should eat other humans,
it is important to the coherence of her approach that humans are placed within the same
moral framework as other animals, and this necessitates their conceptualisation as prey
for others in ecological processes).
The incompatibility of the two theories is inevitably bound up with the
difference of focus. Adams’ work tends to home in tightly on the specific mechanisms
operating within western society that help to maintain an oppressive system.
Consequently she engages directly with these mechanisms in offering solutions.
Plumwood’s theory is very much attuned to recognising problems caused by western
alienation from what she calls “ecological embodiment”, but the solutions that she
suggests are orientated towards attempting to resolve matters within a conceptual
scheme that is applicable to both western and non-western cultural contexts. She cannot
endorse a solution that suggests that people living in the developed western world
should “ontologise” animals differently to those who live in more intimate relations
with the natural world, despite the structural differences in the experiences of both
humans and food animals in these different contexts. To suggest this would appear to
endorse the lack of intimacy in the western human/nature relationship, as well as to
participate in dualistic conceptualisation. In what follows I will examine Adams’
thinking in order to clarify why her focus on the western context, and on solutions that
are specific to that context, may be appropriate.
Adams introduces her book Neither Man Nor Beast with these words: “Issues I
raise in the following pages are not meant to be a systematic laying out of a grand
16
17
Adams, Neither Man nor Beast (1994), New York: Continuum, p.83
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p.295
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theory, but rather are suggestive of the issues that need to be addressed”18. The
distinction she makes is informative: it may be difficult to engage productively with the
full range of issues western institutional animal abuse raises if they must be fitted into
the format of an overarching “ethic” or philosophical theory. Such a theory necessarily
relies on a good degree of abstraction, which may be incompatible with a flexible
appreciation of the way cultural systems work in practice. This is a criticism that
several ecofeminists have made of traditional animal liberation theories such as the
rights and utilitarian frameworks proposed by Tom Regan and Peter Singer19. Adams’
approach enables her to concentrate on features specific to her own cultural context and
to retain flexibility in the interpretation of social phenomena. This is a distinctive
feature of ecofeminist thought, as identified by Karen Warren:
Like all theory, a feminist ethic is based on some generalizations. Nevertheless,
the generalizations associated with it are themselves a pattern of voices within
which the different voices emerging out of concrete and alternative descriptions
of ethical situations have meaning. The coherence of a feminist theory so
conceived is given within a historical and conceptual context, i.e., within a set
of historical, socio-economic circumstances (including circumstances of race,
class, age, and affectional orientation) and within a set of basic beliefs, values,
attitudes, and assumptions about the world.20
Adams’ focus on the cultural situation she is familiar with ensures that her
theory is grounded in her own experience of the context that she writes about. She also
incorporates into her writing an awareness of the functional directedness of her theory
within this situation. As she puts it, “Perhaps our greatest challenge is to raise the
consciousness of those around us to see the institutional violence of eating animals as
an ethical issue”21. This is clearly one of Adams’ primary aims: to raise the
consciousness of those whose complicity in the economic viability of the “meat”
industry ensures its continuation. It is therefore fair to say that her theory has a
polemical purpose. Whereas Plumwood attempts to formulate a philosophically
coherent system, Adams’ lack of this ambition allows her to more directly address
issues that are likely to bring about the “critical consciousness”22 that she identifies as a
necessary factor in the development of social change. Lori Gruen suggests that the form
that theory takes is vital to its wider communicative potential: “Most people are
shielded from the consequences of their actions. As long as the theories that advocate
the liberation of animals rely on abstraction, the full force of these consequences will
remain too far removed to motivate a change in attitude”23.
A comparison at this point with Plumwood’s thinking might be useful in
balancing the different approaches. Aiming for a universal approach, Plumwood claims
that “Animal defence stands in need of a less polarising and more politically
radicalising theory of ethical eating with potentially wide appeal that can form part of
the practice of progressive and aware people in a wide variety of global contexts, not
Adams, Neither Man nor Beast”, p.14
Examples include Josephine Donovan, “Animal Right and Feminist Theory” in Greta Gaard (Ed.),
Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature, and Marti Kheel, “The Liberation of Nature: A Circular
Affair”, Environmental Ethics Vol.7, Summer 1985, p.135-149
20
Karren J. Warren, “The Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism”, Environmental Ethics Vol.12,
Summer 1990, p.139
21
Adams, Neither Man nor Beast, p.176
22
Ibid., p.176
23
Lori Gruen, “Dismantling Oppression: An Analysis of the Connection between Women and Animals”
in Greta Gaard (Ed.), Ecofeminsm: Women, Animals, Nature, p.79
18
19
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just saints and seminarians in limited enclaves of privilege in urban North America”24.
However, there are possible consequences of aiming for a single theory that is
applicable to “a wide variety of global contexts”. One is that it may be less sensitive to
context than a theory that arises within, and addresses itself specifically to, a particular
culture. This is why Warren likens the “generalizations” associated with feminist
theory to a pattern of “different voices emerging out of concrete and alternative
descriptions of ethical situations”. Each voice has its own truth, which arises from
embedded knowledge. As she claims, feminist theory “rejects the assumption that there
is “one voice” in terms of which ethical values, beliefs, attitudes, and conduct can be
assessed”25. Although the aim of Plumwood’s theory is to be “integrated”, it works on
the assumption that it has the potential to become “one voice”, and expresses the darker
implications of this in its inability to tolerate difference, as represented by Adams’
structurally incompatible approach. What is significant is not that Plumwood disagrees
with Adams, but that rather than considering the relevance of Adams’ thinking within
the discursive space that it stakes out for itself, Plumwood makes false claims of
universalism for her and then attempts to discredit her work on these grounds. In
addition, because Plumwood’s theory relies on abstractions such as humans
conceptualising themselves as potential food for others, it may risk lacking
communicative relevance to the lives of the supermarket shoppers and butcher’s shop
“patrons” who support the bulk of the abusive western “meat” industry, and who
Adams is writing about and to.
The relationship between Adams’ aims and Plumwoods criticism of her work is
complicated by misunderstandings over the application of two key terms,
“ontologizing” and “contextualizing”. I will now attempt to clarify this
misunderstanding, and then to explore what Plumwood might mean when she labels
Adams’ theory “alienated”.
Clarification of Meanings
“Ontologizing”
It is impossible to fully grasp Plumwood’s criticism of Adams without
understanding the importance of her particular interpretation of Adams’ claim that the
“ontologizing” of animals as edible should be resisted. Plumwood interprets this as the
statement of a philosophically absolute position, rather than as what I have identified it
as – a culturally situated tactic. I will now attempt to clarify exactly what Adams does
mean by her emphasis on “ontologizing”; it should then become evident why
Plumwood’s interpretation is misguided.
Adams does not merely oppose factory farming: her espousal of vegetarianism
goes deeper than that, as is apparent when she claims that “I see the problem as the
ontologizing of animals as edible, not any single practice of producing flesh foods”26.
Her celebration of historical vegetarianism in The Sexual Politics of Meat looks back to
a period long before factory farming methods were even a glint in capitalism’s eye. But
this does not make her claim that we should not ontologize animals as edible into a
universal claim. Rather, it is a claim specifically tailored to countering the western
conceptual view of animals that finds its purest and worst expression in the factory
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p.7
Warren, “Power and Promise”, p.139
26
Adams, Neither Man nor Beast, p.167
24
25
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farming system. She describes a western view of animals as inherently inferior to
humans and therefore as totally instrumentalisable and identifies this as the dominant
“ontology” of animals in western culture. Factory farming is then seen by her as the
unavoidable consequence of this ontology:
The current ontology requires that we acquiesce to the hierarchical structure
that places humans above animals and defines “human” and “animal”
antithetically. The current ontology continues to subordinate nonhuman nature
– in this case, the other animals – to people’s whims. Intensive factory farming
is inevitable in a flesh-advocating, capitalist culture. It has become the only way
to maintain and meet the demand for flesh products that currently exists and
must be seen as the logical outcome of this ontology.27 (Italics Adams’)
Adams’ point, then, is that factory farming serves to expose the western ontology of
animals as the problem, by growing inevitably from this ontology and explicitly giving
it expression. Adams goes on to describe the way that the ontology of animals as usable,
and as edible, cannot be split off from the aspect of western identity that positions “us”
as a society of “meat” eaters:
It may seem to be a tautology to say that if we believe some other beings are
meant to be our flesh (the appropriate victims) then we are meant to be corpse
eaters. Conversely, if we are meant to be corpse eaters then we also believe that
someone else is meant to die to be our “meat.” These are interlocking givens,
ontologies that become self-perpetuating and breed passivity. Either no problem
exists; it is unchangeable; or it is changeable, but simply too difficult to do so.28
Adams refuses to accept this situation, and insists that it is changeable, by changing the
“ontology” of animals that underlies it. This is crucial to understanding Adams’
approach.
“Contextualizing”
I would now like to contrast this understanding of Adams’ theory with
Plumwood’s charge of poor contextualization. Plumwood quite correctly points out
that Adams theory is badly suited to non-western, non-privileged contexts. It is only by
refusing to acknowledge that it is not intended to suit those contexts that she is able to
make her allegation that it is badly “contextualized”. Consider the following passage:
Although contextual vegetarianisms that are more sensitive to cultural
difference are clearly possible, ontological veganism stands firmly on
universalising a North-American perspective. If vegetarian theorists have
available the alternative possibility of a well contextualized ethical theory, why
do they choose to develop and support a culturally insensitive and universalist
one.29
There appears to be some confusion arising here about what actually constitutes
contextualization. Within Plumwood’s theory good contextualization appears to imply
27
Ibid., p.115
Adams, Neither Man nor Beast, p.170
29
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p.303
28
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the creation of a single universal narrative that is capable of being fitted to “a wide
variety of global contexts”30. This would include considering whether the theory
“works” in these diverse contexts in a way which does not impinge unfairly on the lives
and cultures of indigenous others. It would then be “culturally sensitive” by being
applicable transculturally. This is the type of theory that Plumwood attempts to develop
herself. As established, however, what Adams has done is to create a theory that is
embedded within one specific cultural context and is not intended to be applied in a
wider sense. Plumwood’s charge that Adams’ work is badly contextualized is therefore
totally misconceived; it is her own theory that is “universalist” and that risks being only
dubiously “culturally sensitive” to the western context by attempting to resolve the
problems of human dominance with abstract symbolic gestures such as claiming that
“we can reposition ourselves back in the food chain, acknowledge our own edibility,
and start our project of recognizing kinship from there”31. Suggestions such as this will
mean almost nothing to the average urban westerner.
Plumwood confidently asserts that “Although ecofeminist theory has tended to
stress contextual ethics (Warren 1990), existing cultural ecofeminist ontological vegan
theories have not lived up to these commitments”32. This citation of Warren is rather
ironic, however, as Adams’ situated voice fits more comfortably into Warren’s
pluralistic vision (which “rejects the assumption that there is “one voice”” 33) than
Plumwood’s universal and totalising grand narrative.
“Alienation”
The word “alienation” is hugely important in Plumwood’s work, both in her
critique of Adams and in other writings. This term is intimately linked to Plumwood’s
analysis of the functioning of dualisms in western thought. In Feminism and the
Mastery of Nature, dualistic thinking is related to domination and repression of the
“other”, and is considered inherently “alienated” primarily because it constructs reality,
and difference, in a reductive way. This is apparent in Plumwood’s assertion that
“Dualism can also be seen as an alienated form of differentiation, in which power
construes and constructs difference in terms of an inferior and alien realm”34. The word
is also used by Plumwood in other contexts. The exact form, conditions and
manifestation of the “alienation” are often not fully explored however, and the term
may, ironically, appear to function in various ways to express Plumwood’s
dissatisfaction with a structure of ideas or material conditions. I would like now to
discuss the charge that “ontological” vegetarianism is “alienated”, and to consider the
way that this charge functions as a delegitimating or muting device.
There appear to be three principal senses in which Plumwood intends that
Adams’ theory be considered “alienated”. The first is by including elements of dualistic
thinking: “ontological veganism colludes with the dualism of the western tradition”35. I
will discuss later the charge that Adams’ theory is dualistic, and dispute this claim. The
other two senses are perhaps combined in the charge of alienation from “ecological
embodiment”. The first of these two involves an alienation from involvement in
ecological processes. Plumwood draws a contrast between the “dualistic versus
alienated alternatives of unconstrained use versus the alienated “outside the ecosystem”
30
Ibid., p.291
Ibid., p.296
32
Ibid., p.303
33
Warren, “Power and Promise”, p.139
34
Plumwood, Feminism and Mastery, p.42
35
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p.298
31
12
alternative of avoidance of all use”36. This kind of alienation, an alienation from direct
participation in food chains that is perhaps presumed to accompany the western
“hyperseparation” from nature, is inevitably to some extent illusory. This point is made
explicitly by Plumwood herself when she invokes “the fundamental ecological insight
that culture is embedded in ecological systems and dependent on nature”37. It also
suggests that the existence of herbivorous humans and the freeing of animals from
human consumption is somehow intended to put either humans or animals “outside the
ecosystem”. This element of Plumwood’s analysis is based on a selective and flawed
extrapolation of the symbolic significance of “ontological vegetarianism” from the
realm where it has meaning to an abstract level where it is more easily pathologised.
The final sense in which Plumwood intends Adams’ thinking to be seen as
alienated functions more aggressively to undermine its perceived legitimacy.
Plumwood suggests that “Alienated ontological vegetarian forms draw on our
traditional western alienation from embodiment”38. This is a powerful criticism to
make, but it is a charge that is very poorly supported by argument. Plumwood resorts to
suggesting links with other supposedly tainted philosophical positions in a way that
smacks of “guilt by association”. She claims that “Historically, ontological
vegetarianism has often kept company with alienated worldviews which reject earthly
life and construe embodiment as a corrupt and tragic condition, for example in
Manicheism, Gnosticism, Pythagoreanism, and Catharism”39. The main supporting
evidence that Plumwood finds linking Adams’ thought to this rejection of embodiment
is the tendency for “ontological” vegetarians to refer to “meat” eating in “terms
calculated to horrify, revolt, and disgust”40. I will examine this tendency in a later
section, and will dispute the claim that it is a result of alienation from embodiment.
The two unstated assumptions that Plumwood’s charge appears to depend on
are that embodied beings (or embodied human beings) universally desire to eat animal
flesh, and that to not occasionally accede to that desire represents a profound and
pathological act of self-denial. These assumptions inevitably draw on the same
discourse of flesh eating as “natural” and “inevitable” that helps to legitimate “meat”.
They are also blind to the very real fact that many people do not actually want to eat
“meat” (or any other construction of animal flesh). Adams describes how assumptions
such as Plumwood’s work:
Both feminists and vegetarians are accused of negativity because they appear to
require that something be given up (the most obvious trappings of femininity;
the meat on the plate) as opposed to their own perspective in which they are
emphasizing the positive choice (aspiring to emancipation and liberation;
choosing vegetables, grains, and fruits). Who is a feminist or a vegetarian
becomes a vexed question and the principles behind feminism and
vegetarianism are transformed into “being moralistic.”41
The assumption of ascetic self-denial refuses to acknowledge that thinking through and
truly caring about the consequences of one’s actions, for “embodied” beings, usually
has a direct effect on the desirability of specific actions. This is presumably why Adams
emphasizes “consciousness raising” rather than abstract ethical injunctions. It is worth
36
Ibid., p.300
Ibid., p.308
38
Ibid., p.292
39
Ibid., p.292
40
Ibid., p.292
41
Adams, Sexual Politics, p.90
37
13
considering Adams’ description of how children may be initially resistant to the idea of
eating “meat”:
Children, fresh observers of the dominant culture, raise issues about meat eating
using a literal viewpoint. One part of the socialization process to the dominant
culture is the encouragement of children to view the death of animals for food as
acceptable; to do so they must think symbolically rather than literally.42
From Adams’ perspective the “natural” impulse is to psychologically connect up the
“meat on the plate” to the implicitly denied life of the animal that it came from, and
therefore to reject the “meat”. The socialization of a child may then actually involve
alienating the child from this awareness by symbolic devices and acculturation to the
dominant viewpoint using the various denial mechanisms that Adams identifies. The
question of which desire comes first, the desire to eat animal flesh or the desire to
preserve animal lives, is therefore rather difficult to resolve.
Plumwood’s accusation of alienation from embodiment, and its prerequisite
assumption of normality and centrality for flesh eating, is not particularly helpful for
this debate. Her sustained attempt to control the symbolic meaning of Adams’ work
aligns itself unintentionally with dominant and problematic discourses and parallels
many other time-honoured but unsound interpretations of the refusal to eat “meat”,
such as the charge discussed by Adams that it is “phobic”:
The attempt to squeeze the meaning of a response to food into the term “phobic”
when it might be cultural, symbolic, or political demonstrates the labelling
impulse of the dominant culture seeking to control interpretation. When refusal
to eat meat is labelled phobic the dominant society is enacting distortion; it
cannot grant positive status to objections to eating animals… The perspective
against which refusal to eat meat is judged is one that presumes meat eating is
an appropriate activity. Thus the dominant perspective mutes the minority
perspective, absorbing it within the dominant perspective by labelling it as
individual and deviant.43
The accusation of “alienation” functions in exactly this way in Plumwood’s discussion,
and is repeated so often that it almost becomes a mantra. For such a central charge there
should really be a much more considered argument than Plumwood attempts to
provide. One of the lessons to be learned from the more overtly masculine discourses
that have emerged in the animal rights / ecology debate is that biased interpretations of
the symbolic meaning of the other’s point of view, created to discredit that point of
view, are meaninglessly destructive and ultimately hollow. Ecofeminism, at its best,
seems to envisage itself as a circumventing of this type of bluster. Plumwood’s attempt
to extrapolate, absolutize and pathologize symbolic meanings denies the relevance of
context for honestly understanding both the practical and symbolic aspects of Adams’
“ontological” vegetarian protest and celebration. I will now explore this claim in more
detail, with reference to the contested relationships between nature, culture and food.
Nature, Culture and Food
42
43
Ibid., p.75
Ibid., p.160
14
A crucial contested area in this debate is the most appropriate way to understand
the relationships between nature and culture in the making of food choices. Adams and
Plumwood inevitably come at this from different angles. Plumwood draws a contrast
between two narratives: the individual justice framework and the ecological framework
of energy flow and exchange. Her attempt to integrate the two takes place on a largely
symbolic and abstract level, and involves criticism of Adams because the suggestion
that animals should not be ontologised as edible by western humans seems
incompatible with the ecological framework. Plumwood criticises arguments situating
western “meat” eating purely in culture, emphasising “the way our lives weave together
and criss-cross narratives of culture and nature”44. Adams, however, attempts to
politicise western “meat” eating, identifying the discourse that claims it to be natural as
part of the problem that needs to be overcome, and therefore inevitably comes into
conflict with Plumwood. Her account, however, is more concerned with the practical,
and tactical, use of discourses to maintain oppression than with philosophical
abstraction. In this section I attempt to problematise Plumwood’s account of the
symbolic implications of Adams’ thinking, and to reaffirm the relevance its
situatedness.
Adams makes the following claim:
Any debate about the place of animals in human communities occurs within a
cultural context and a cultural practice. Here ideology pre-exists and imposes
itself on individual perceptions, so that what is actually a problem of
consciousness – how we look at animals – is seen as an aspect of personal
choice and is presented as a “natural” aspect of our lives as human beings.45
The purpose of this is to “politicise the natural” or refuse to accept the discourse that
claims that the presence of animals as an oppressed group in human society is
analogous to natural predation. This discourse is itself inevitably political, and invokes
a kind of biological determinism to suggest that not eating animal flesh is in some way
symptomatic of a less than fully adequate human existence. This way of appealing to
the “natural” can be seen to be part of the network of denial mechanisms which enable
confrontation with the misery forced on food animals to be conveniently avoided by
western society. As Adams puts it, “Claiming that human consumption of the other
animals is predation like that of carnivorous animals naturalizes this act… Instead it is
an ongoing oppression enacted through the animal-industrial complex”46.
What is interesting at this point is the way that Adams’ analysis of how this
discourse works intersects with Plumwood’s analysis of Adams’ theory, as well as her
own proposals. Plumwood accuses the ontological vegetarian approach of “demonizing
predation in an account which finds an easy way prepared for it along well-trodden
western paths of alienation from ecological embodiment”47. Again, Plumwood appears
to have misunderstood what Adams is claiming. Adams is careful to clearly distinguish
the predation of carnivorous animals from the use of food animals to provide “meat” (a
“culturally specific construction”48). Therefore there is no logical philosophical
implication that Adams’ theory in any way “demonises predation”, and Adams
certainly doesn’t make any suggestion that she wishes to censure carnivorous
non-humans (or humans that cannot survive without animal food). Plumwood,
however, is very insensitive to the subtleties of this situated analysis, ignoring Adams’
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p. 309
Adams, “Feminist Traffic”, p.200
46
Ibid. p.206
47
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p. 288
48
This term is coined by Plumwood to refer to Adams’ own description of “meat”. Ibid. p.296
44
45
15
qualifying statements and attempting to extrapolate the possible implications of any
one nuance to the assertion of a philosophical absolute. She writes that
any attempt to condemn predation in completely general, ontological terms will
inevitably rub off onto predatory animals (including both carnivorous and
omnivorous animals), and any attempt to separate predation completely from
human identity will also serve to reinforce once again the western tradition’s
hyperseparation of our nature from that of animals.49
Adams, of course, has attempted neither of these things; she has only separated
predation from western “meat” eating. What is paradoxical about Plumwood’s analysis
is that she herself distinguishes “between the concept of “meat”… and other possible
constructions of animals as edible food”50, but refuses to recognise such a distinction in
Adams’ thought.
A key to understanding Plumwood’s critique is suggested by her concern with
western “hyperseparation” from nature. Her resistance to Adams’ thinking can be seen
as resistance to a theory that accommodates, and deals with issues arising from, that
separation without opposing it per se. For example, I believe that when Plumwood
writes of “the alienation from ecological embodiment this position gives rise to”51, it
would perhaps be fairer and more accurate to have considered “the alienation from
ecological embodiment that this position arises within and attempts to deal with the
directly oppressive consequences of”. There is the potential here for a very interesting
debate about what is the most appropriate level at which to attempt to redesign western
society in order to achieve both species egalitarian and environmentally liberatory
goals. Such a debate would have to encompass the necessity for theory to communicate
on a wide scale. Plumwood’s analysis is arguably “deeper” than Adams’, but risks
losing relevance in abstraction and the disembodied, objective stance that it attempts to
take. Adams’ work, however, may contain the surface detail and connecting up of
fragmented and submerged awarenesses that non-academics will engage with a little
more readily, while not being in any way populist or reductive.
This point can usefully be considered in relation to Plumwood’s emphasis on
the importance of humans considering themselves as potential food for other animals.
Plumwood is concerned that the “concept of human identity positions humans outside
and above the food chain”, claiming that this is conceived as a matter of human
“sanctity” and citing the following evidence: “Horror is the wormy corpse, vampires
sucking, and sci-fi monsters trying to eat humans (Alien and Aliens). Horror and
outrage usually greet the stories of other species eating live or dead humans, various
levels of hysteria our nibbling by the leeches, sandflies, and mosquitoes”52. The
problem with Plumwood’s interpretation is that it has a very abstract engagement with
the phenomena it describes. It finds a pathological vision of human sanctity in horror
films, rather than the expression of an embodied and universal awareness that we are
actually potential food, and that being killed and eaten by scary monsters is likely to be
an undesirable experience for most individuals53. As for being nibbled by insects, there
are probably few people who have not been, and most simply do what they can to avoid
it and get on with life. In addition, the western cultural taboo on humans eating other
humans that Plumwood goes on to mention has many possible origins other than a
vision of human sanctity, such as a desire to avoid disease transmission, or to preserve
49
Ibid. p.307
Ibid., p.296
51
Ibid., p.287
52
Ibid. p.294
53
Plumwood’s own close experience in this regard is obviously not to be belittled.
50
16
social cohesion. Plumwood’s abstraction of these cultural phenomena to a symbolic
level that denies bodily awareness is not only unsuited to engaging popular support, but
weakens the academic strength of her case.
The assertion of human sanctity is a basis on which further crucial stages of
Plumwood’s analysis depend. She goes on to make the following claim, which I would
like to examine in some detail:
As a result of this hyper-separation, food as interpreted in such a human
supremacist order of rational meritocracy could never be a sacramental means
to share our embodiment, but must become instead a hyper-separated and
degraded category with which we are unable to experience any form of
identification. This conviction is one source of our domination and reduction of
those whom we would make our food. But it is also a further source of the
alienated ontological form of vegetarianism that sees de-dualizing as attempting
to extend outwards to some nonhumans this “sanctity” aspect of what is
imagined to be the human condition.54
The idea that food has become a “degraded” category is interesting, although
Plumwood’s understanding of how this may have come about seems reductive and
overly convenient for the logical progression of her argument. She does not consider
the implications of other factors affecting the cultural significance of food in western
societies. If food is indeed degraded, it seems probable that this could have a lot to do
with the lack of involvement most consumers have with the production of food. In most
cases it is something purchased rather than something grown, harvested or gathered
with one’s own time and energy. This time and energy is split off into work and leisure
activities which assume greater symbolic importance, and where food intersects with
these, such as in cooking a celebratory meal or visiting a favourite restaurant it is likely
to be highly valued. The “degradation” of the symbolic importance of food can be seen
to be to a considerable degree linked to the distancing of food production from people’s
lives; the degradation and abuse of animal lives in the capitalist, commodified “meat”
industry are, of course, inextricably tied to this distancing. Rather than what Plumwood
calls “ontological” vegetarianism being “alienated” and about the extension of a
symbolic “sanctity”, it can be seen instead as a stance motivated directly by a desire to
reject the social acceptability of “meat” and a refusal to passively comply with the
distancing, degradation and alienation associated with commodified “meat”
consumption. Marti Kheel, who Plumwood identifies as another “ontological”
vegetarian is therefore able to write
Since we live in a fragmented world, we will need to stretch our imaginations to
put it back together again. It is often difficult for us to conceive of the impact
that our personal conduct has beyond our individual lives. Reason is easily
divided from emotion when our emotions are divided from experience… It is
the details that we need to live moral lives, not obedience to abstract principles
and rules.55
It is important to note that the “contextual” vegetarianism that Plumwood develops also
espouses attention to details, and by questioning the appropriateness of the more
abstract critical elements of Plumwood’s theory, I do not intend to query the
54
Ibid., p.294
Marti Kheel, “From Heroic to Holistic Ethics: The Ecofeminist Challenge” in Greta Gaard (Ed.),
Ecofeminsm: Women, Animals, Nature, p.258
55
17
constructive suggestions she makes. However, it is important to consider a further
aspect of Plumwood’s linking of the “degradation” of food to “ontological”
vegetarianism. Plumwood seems to have no awareness of the way that the process that
Kheel describes can actually function to restore the “sacramental” aspect of eating in a
commodified culture. The refusal to consider eating animal flesh may act to forge a
deeper relationship between an individual and their diet, and therefore to counter some
of the distancing effects imposed by a commodity culture. This is quite plainly apparent
in Adams’ description of vegetarian food as “feeding on grace”56, and exposes a
fundamental inconsistency in Plumwood’s suggestion that “ontological” vegetarianism
actually participates in the degraded conception of food. Consider the rhapsodical bond
that Adams clearly has with her diet:
To destabilize patriarchal consumption, eat rice have faith in women. By doing
so… we restore wholeness to our fragmented relationships with each other and
the other animals. The question before us is, which images of the universe, of
power, of animals, of ourselves, will we represent in our food? Of that which
has preceded us, what shall remain?57
Plumwood seems to approve, in theory, of a “sacramental” connection with diet, but the
particular “contextual” vegetarianism that she outlines actually offers little realistic
scope for the kind of relationship to food that Adams so clearly enjoys for people living
in commodified societies. This is apparent in her espousal of adventitious and
occasional “meat” eating:
Adventitious use (scavenging) might include cases where you find road-kill in
still-edible condition, where someone is about to throw away a ham sandwich in
perfectly good condition, or the waiter brings the wrong dish… Occasional use
includes the case where the normal diet excludes animal products, but fish
(nonfarmed) is eaten every third Friday to be on the safe side or for specific
health reasons.58
Contrary to what would be expected from following Plumwood’s critique of
“ontological vegetarianism” and her own emphasis on “sacred eating”, it seems that her
practical dietary advice offers surprisingly little attention to spiritual sustenance. By
making suggestions such as these Plumwood risks supporting the western discourse of
“meat” as an integral part of the human diet, and of suggesting that a diet totally devoid
of animal flesh may in some way be impoverished. This has implications for the resolve
of potential abstainers, for the coherence of the case against “meat” and for an honest
representation of the health issues for those not living in nutritionally marginal
situations.
Plumwood’s unwillingness to endorse a framework in which no animal food at
all is eaten can be related to two factors. One of them, admirably, is a desire to avoid
any implication of lack of solidarity with indigenous or non-western people who
depend on animal food either for nutrition or for the maintenance of an ecologically
sensitive and integrated lifestyle. Since Adams’ theory limits its scope to the western
context, I have previously argued that she also avoids this implication. The second
reason that I have been able to discern in Plumwood’s work is that she considers not
eating any animal food to be about removing animals symbolically from ecological
56
Adams, Neither Man Nor Beast, p. 162, for example
Adams, Sexual Politics, p.190
58
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p.318
57
18
systems, labelling the “ontological” vegetarian position a “fantasy of extending to
animals the master position outside the food chain”59. This observation, however,
depends on Plumwood’s previously discussed reluctance to acknowledge that
“ontological” vegetarians do not censure predatory animals or unprivileged humans.
Her symbolic interpretation is also dubiously relevant to the western context, where the
alignment with the discourse of “meat” as natural or inevitable that “adventitious” or
“occasional” use represents is likely to outweigh any symbolic connotations of
embeddedness in ecological process.
The discussion I have attempted of the way Adams’ and Plumwood’s theories
intersect at the blurred boundary of nature and culture is inevitably vulnerable. There
are no absolutes here, except the practical realities of suffering. Both theorists balance
the cultural symbolism of their work, the rhetorical purpose and the relation between
context and claim in different ways. Attempting to make the two sets of theory occupy
the same discursive space is difficult and in many ways counter-intuitive; it is necessary
primarily because Plumwood’s critique of Adams makes it so. My next section will
examine Plumwood’ charge that Adams’ theory involves an unacceptable ethical
dualism by excluding plants from consideration.
Ethical Dualism and the Plant–Animal Boundary
I will now consider Plumwood’s charge that Adams’ thinking participates in
dualistic conceptualisation by presupposing a “dualistic polarity between “animals”
and “plants””60. This is not exactly the same thing as differentiating animals from
plants. The charge of dualism suggests that difference is falsely exaggerated (or even
constructed) and implies that this is related to the interests of power. Plumwood points
out that if humans are not to eat any being that is ethically considerable then this
presupposes that there must be a class of beings that are not ethically considerable that
we can make our food. Plumwood calls this the Exclusion Assumption and claims that
Although ontological vegans present themselves as extending our sympathies
for our companion life forms on this planet, their rejection of sacred eating
carries as its hidden underside another unstated project, that of narrowing and
blunting our sympathies and sensibilities for the excluded class of living beings
who are needed for our food.61
Plumwood considers this to be problematic for several reasons. One of these is that it is
a “source of conflict with ecological consciousness, because in the present context of
ecological destruction, it would be wise for us to adopt philosophical strategies and
methodologies that maximise our sensitivity to other members of our ecological
communites and openness to them as ethically considerable beings”62.
Plumwood’s interpretation of Adams’ thinking, again, is based on an
abstraction of the meaning of “ontological” vegetarianism from its own ideological
context, and an assigning to it of implications that it does not carry. The fact that
Adams’ theory only briefly encompasses concern for the suffering of individual plants
within its framework does not mean that concern about ecological destruction is in any
59
Ibid. p.297
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p.292
61
Ibid., p.301
62
Ibid., p.301
60
19
way occluded. Rather, Adams’ claim about the “ontologizing” of animals represents
one aspect of her thinking; her analysis also heavily emphasises the environmental
costs of flesh production in the western world63, and by keeping her thinking firmly
embedded in such contextual details she avoids the risk of losing direct relevance.
Plumwood’s suggestion that “ontological” vegetarianism involves “narrowing and
blunting our sympathies and sensibilities” for plants conveniently ignores Adams’
emphasis on the environmental impact of “meat” and proceeds clumsily from the idea
that there must be one totally coherent and overarching philosophical ethic that
encompasses all forms of concern. While practical suggestions for the integration of
different concerns are obviously likely to be useful, she demonstrates clearly here that
the attempt to accommodate all ethical considerations within an abstract formulation
risks losing its focus on the particularities of embodied life. This is the point of
Warren’s emphasis on contextual ethics.
Plumwood also alleges that “ontological” vegetarianism entails “an abrupt
moral and biological break between “animals” and “plants” which is out of step with
what we know about the continuity of planetary life”.64 It certainly seems that there is
an indistinct boundary between plant and animal life, which may problematise efforts
to draw a solid line between those that have “considerability” (in crude terms) and those
who do not. However, on a practical level there is little need to draw such a line: in
almost all cases we know when we are eating an animal and when we are eating a plant
(or the product of a plant), and we are aware of a significant difference in the subjective
life that may be cut short, as Adams’ asserts:
It may be theoretically asked whether carrots are being exploited, but once we
situate ourselves within the lived reality we know as this world, we must surely
know or intuit that the eating of a horse, cow, pig, or chicken is different from
the eating of a carrot. The apparent failure of environmentalists to stipulate this
is a failure to participate in embodied knowledge; it reinforces the idea that we
live by abstractions.65
Adams also suggests that questioning the distinction between eating a carrot and eating
a cow is an example of Cartesian doubt66, which exposes an irony in Plumwood’s claim
that
Carol Adams simply ridicules the idea that plant lives could have individual
value or that plants could have forms of awareness, for example, in exactly the
same way the idea that animals might have minds was ridiculed earlier by those
who urged that animals were beneath consideration.67
Adams does not ridicule this idea (although she has highlighted the way that it is often
used to ridicule vegetarians68). Her point is that an embodied awareness that draws on
knowledge of relationships with animals provides the epistemological basis for
knowing that they can suffer, as well as for caring about that suffering. It seems
disingenuous of Plumwood to then attempt to link this aspect of Adams’ thinking to the
Cartesian denial of subjectivity to animals, which was actually based on rejecting an
embodied awareness.
63
For example, Adams, Neither Man nor Beast, p.92-97
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p.301
65
Adams, Neither Man nor Beast, p.107
66
Ibid., p.107
67
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p.301
68
Adams, Sexual Politics, p.89
64
20
Adam’s theory is not dualistic in any meaningful sense. She does not intend any
implication that plants are “inferior” to animals to arise from it and her work does not
legitimate any oppression of the plant kingdom. She points out that many more plants
are eaten by “meat” animals than would be eaten if these animals were not kept, and by
keeping her analysis closely tied to context is able to observe that:
The current reality is that the greatest exploitation of plant foods, the
accompanying deployment of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, the production
of monoculture crops that neglect the needs of the soil are all related not to
human’s need to eat plants but to creating foods for terminal animals to eat
before they become flesh. The extensive exploitation of the plant kingdom
arises because of the extensive exploitation of animals.69 (Italics Adams’)
The only way that it can be implied that Adams’ thinking is dualistic, then, is by
overemphasising on an unnecessarily abstract symbolic level the importance of the
claim that animals should not be ontologized as edible. However, if the distinction
between plants and animals that this implies is accepted as a salient difference, rather
than an exaggerated or constructed dualism, then any objection vanishes. One of the
problems with Plumwood’s observations is that they attempt to assimilate
“ontological” vegetarianism to the philosophical animal rights position arrived at by
ethical extensionism. However, since Adams’ analysis explicitly distances itself from
this project, Plumwood’s critique is, again, somewhat lacking. As Adams says at the
beginning of Neither Man nor Beast,
I recognize many other issues besides that of animals’ subordination as
problematic. I am not patching animals onto an undisturbed notion of human
rights, but am examining the place of animals in the fabric of feminist ethics – a
starting point that already presumes that exploitation entails more than the
exploitation of animals. This clarification is necessary to insure that this book is
clearly situated in the reader’s mind in an a priori problematic of human-nature
relations.70
The final section of my analysis will consider the question of “disgust”, and its
manifestation as an occasional response of vegetarians to the eating of “meat”.
Disgust
Plumwood attempts to link the supposed alienation of “ontological” vegetarians
to their occasional expression of feelings of disgust at the eating of “meat”. I believe the
issue to be much more complex than this. While it is probable that the thinking of a
committed vegetarian71 or vegan will become to some degree “alienated” from the
dominant viewpoint (which systematically naturalizes oppression) the implication by
Plumwood that this is a pathological form of alienation, or an alienation from
embodiment, is reductive and wrong. I would like to briefly suggest a way to begin
understanding this phenomenon that does not implicitly insult the psychological
integrity of committed vegetarians.
69
Adams, Neither Man nor Beast, p.107
Ibid., p.15
71
I have replaced Plumwood’s term “ontological vegetarian” from here onward with the term
“committed vegetarian”, which I consider less tainted by her insistence on pathological forms of
“alienation”, and which I like more.
70
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Plumwood’s claim is that
An explicit alienation from ecological embodiment (and its finale of bodily
disintegration) is expressed in the ontological vegetarian practice of treating
human predation as so universally alien and fallen, its results should only ever
be referred to in terms calculated to horrify, revolt, and disgust, terms that
deliberately and uncritically invoke alienated traditions of fear and aversion in
relation to the flesh, the dead human body, and the dread of ghoulish “corpse
consumption”.72
The first point to make is that the terms used by vegetarians are in fact often precise and
accurate descriptions of what is going on. “Corpse consumption”, the example given by
Plumwood, is a descriptive, factual account of what “meat” eating involves. The
problem here may be that “meat” eaters are used to using linguistic and psychological
avoidance mechanisms to maintain a distance from the more unsavoury implications of
their diet. Adams details many of these mechanisms, such as the “absent referent” and
the use of “meat” as a “mass term” that denies any individuality or subjectivity to its
original form as an aware being. When vegetarians destabilize the functioning of these
mechanisms by making accurate observations about what is involved then it is
comforting for this to be interpreted, by the dominant viewpoint, as an expression of
pathological tendencies. Such an interpretation acts to restore stability to the distancing
mechanisms and to diffuse the psychological dissonance that may have been
experienced.
However, I do not wish to falsely underplay the fact that to varying degrees,
vegetarians may experience feelings of revulsion or disgust at “meat” eating (indeed the
above discussion even implies some small amount of revulsion in “meat” eaters when
brought to a moment of clarity). The revulsion felt by vegetarians is rarely “calculated”
however and may commonly be experienced on a deeper level than is actually
expressed. This revulsion is usually reserved for unnecessary human “meat” eating and
does not extend to the eating of flesh by other animals or unprivileged humans. It is
perhaps similar in some ways to a feeling of revulsion and disgust at the awareness of a
brutal assault. Unprovoked assaults are ethically proscribed within most cultural
systems, just as “meat” is ethically proscribed in vegetarian subcultural systems. For
most vegetarians this is not experienced as an injunction against something that is
otherwise desireable, but is experienced as something that is right, and that is
internalised as an aspect of selfhood, just as ethically mature and integrated humans
experience the proscription of unprovoked assaults as something that is right. Deane
Curtin emphasises that
Our relations to what we will count as food shape one’s sense of personhood,
and how one understands one’s relations to others. Through accepting the
possibility that our relations to food can define who we are, one comes to see the
choice of what will count as food as a moral choice that reflects who one is and
as an ontological commitment to the way the world will be ordered by that
choice.73
This psychological process is implicit in being a committed vegetarian and appears to
be something that Plumwood objects strongly to, perhaps because she perceives it as an
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p.292
Deane Curtin, “Toward an Ecological Ethic of Care” in Josephine Donovan & Carol J. Adams (Ed.s),
Beyond Animal Rights (1996), New York: Continuum, p.70
72
73
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implicit critique of less committed positions. While a critique of practices situated in
the western cultural context is implicit in committed western vegetarianism, very few
committed vegetarians are arrogant or ignorant enough to attempt to extend this
implicit critique beyond their own cultural space, where the specific phenomena that it
arises in protest against are located. This, crucially, is why in order to discredit Adams’
work, Plumwood finds it necessary to fabricate false claims of universalism for her
situated theory.
The question of disgust may arise, then, in response to an awareness of the
transgression both of the integrity of another’s person, and of the internalised moral
boundary that makes this seem wrong. This response may be heightened in committed
vegetarians because the transgression is not an isolated assault but is a systematic and
socially sanctioned oppression of millions. This oppression commonly involves
conditions of physical and psychological torture that no “terms calculated to horrify,
revolt, and disgust” could even begin to capture. The ingestion of any “meat” that takes
place within a social system that participates in this may risk being seen as symbolic of
support for the entire enterprise. As Mary Douglas has observed, in a discussion
unconnected with vegetarianism:
The body is a complex structure. The functions of its different parts and their
relation afford a source of symbols for other complex structures. We cannot
possibly interpret rituals concerning excreta, breast milk, saliva and the rest
unless we are prepared to see in the body a symbol of society, and to see the
powers and dangers credited to social structure reproduced in small on the
human body.74
Conclusion
Val Plumwood’s attack on Carol Adams is badly informed and disingenuous.
She misrepresents Adams’ work and uses abstraction from context to claim that it
means things that it quite evidently does not mean. In addition to this, she makes
suggestions that indirectly insult and attempt to discredit Adams’ thinking, claiming at
one point “People, especially people concerned about others enough to be concerned
about animals, do not usually set out to make theory that is alienated and racist”75. The
implication that this assertion makes is apparently pointed in Adams’ direction, and is
clearly unwarranted and harmful.
Throughout my discussion I have been wary of entering into a “You’re
alienated – No you’re more alienated” situation. This would clearly be ridiculous for a
discussion supposedly concerned with liberatory politics and resistance to the
oppression of others. However, Plumwood’s mistakes appear to highlight a danger that
goes with attempting to see embedded cultural phenomena in overly abstract symbolic
terms. It is impossible to honestly understand the meaning of committed western
vegetarianism or veganism without seeing it as an impassioned response to the
commodified, self-deceiving, corrupt and abusive western context. This is Carol
Adams’ starting point, and her work deserves attention on that basis.
There does seem to be a need for some degree of theoretical integration of
frameworks for thinking about abuses of animals, of ecological systems, and of
unprivileged societies. In this respect, there are valuable elements in Plumwood’s
74
Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (1994),
London: Routledge (originally published 1966), p.116
75
Plumwood, “Integrating Ethical Frameworks”, p.291
23
account; these elements are not the ones discussed here. If the integration is to do
justice to each concern then it will have to take each concern for what it is,
understanding clearly not only its geographical and ecological aspects, but also its
ideological, relational, symbolic and emotional aspects. Reductive formulae are
unlikely to suffice. Offering an adequate structure to begin this process, ultimately,
means being open to the value that there is in any thinking about liberation, being able
to understand such thinking on its own terms, and if such thinking does risk directly
oppressing others criticising it on the basis of this oppression, rather than on terms
manufactured to present a convincing academic case.
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