Eating Meat — Fifty Shades of Grey

Can I Continue Eating Meat?

At the beginning of 2017, I wrote a blog post, asking the question “Should I eat meat?”. The motivation for this question came from a desire to seek moral congruity, meaning that I felt my actions as a human were not aligned with my sense of morality. I don’t like the idea of inflicting pain upon a living creature, I’d hate to see my dog in pain, yet I’m happy for other living creatures to be killed, simply to provide my food. It’s clear to see the contradiction here.

More recently, I’ve come across the psychological term ‘cognitive dissonance’, which refers to the ability of people to hold two or more conflicting opinions. In my case, I hold the opinion that inflicting pain on animals is wrong, whilst holding another opinion that killing animals, to eat meat, is absolutely fine. There’s clearly conflicts between these two positions, but humans also naturally seek to reduce cognitive dissonance by reconciling any conflicts, therefore closing the gap between them.

The origins of these thoughts and feelings co-incided with a trip to India at Christmas, which gave me the opportunity to seek out a fisherman and spend a morning on the sea, catching fish. The
travelogue post that I wrote about my experiences and feelings around catching, killing and cooking those fish makes a great read —…