Should you save a dying stranger if you know they eat MEAT?

Letting meat eaters drown is ethical because of the suffering they cause to animals, an Oxford University academic has controversially argued. 

Dr Michael Plant, a philosopher focusing on happiness, who eats meat himself, claims that, according to some moral philosophies, it can be justifiable to let people like himself die.

His argument stems from a conflict of what he says are two commonly held beliefs.

The first is human beings have a duty to rescue each other when doing so comes at a trivial cost. For example, jumping into a pond to save a drowning child but ruining your clothes in the process. 

The second belief, Dr Plant claims, is it is wrong to eat meat because of the suffering animals can experience in factory farms. 

Livestock, like chickens, can often be kept in cramped, dirty conditions before they are slaughtered. 

He says this conflict leaves people who subscribe to the second belief in a morally interesting position if they encounter someone who eats meat drowning in a pond, and that allowing them to die might, in fact, be the lesser evil. 

An Oxford academic has argued that some moral philosophies allow people to ethically not save meat-eaters in life-or-death situations due to the cruelty their diet inflicts on animals in factory farms 

Such farms, where animals like chickens are kept in cramped dirty conditions, often in pain for months of their life before being slaughtered are controversial 

‘It seems universally accepted that doing or allowing a harm is permissible — and may even be required — when it is the lesser evil,’ he wrote in the Journal of Controversial Ideas.

‘I argue that, if meat eating is wrong on animal suffering grounds then, once we consider how much suffering might occur, it starts to seem plausible that saving strangers would be the greater evil than not rescuing them and is, therefore, not required after all.’

Dr Plant compares this to a pond scenario where, instead of a child, a person sees a cruel dictator known for torturing their populace drowning.

To save the dictator would allow them to continue inflicting suffering, so, similar to a meat eater, allowing them to drown might be the lesser evil. 

He acknowledges most readers will consider this argument ‘preposterous’.

But he counters that since a year of a person eating meat is roughly equivalent to five years of chickens suffering in abominable conditions, the total ‘negative wellbeing’ created by that person over time is quite large.  

Dr Plant also acknowledges some might argue that saving the meat eater’s life is permissible if you convert them to being a vegetarian upon rescuing them.

But, the moral merits of this could vary on if the person is successfully converted, he adds.    

‘It seems most likely they would assume your request was mad and ignore it, “You won’t believe what happened to me today. I fell in the pond and would have drowned if someone hadn’t pulled me out. But that wasn’t the weird thing. The person who pulled me out then asked if I ate a lot of chicken and demanded I stop.”,’ he said. 

‘The reason we seriously countenance not saving the drowning dictator is that, while the best outcome would be if you saved him and then successfully convinced him to stop doing bad things, we recognise this outcome is not at all likely.’

Dr Plant concludes his argument by saying there is a ‘deep and underappreciated tension’ between the beliefs of saving lives and not eating from factory farms.  

Dr Michael Plant (pictured here) has previously said he is not a vegetarian himself but tries to only eat animals that have had happy lives

‘While we would not normally consider these beliefs to be relevant to each other, I pressed the straightforward problem that, if we have those animal welfare concerns then, when we account for them, it reduces, and may remove, the obligation to rescue others. I consider this surprising and disturbing,’ he said. 

Dr Plant has previously described himself as a ‘welfatarian’ – someone who eats animals only if the creature has experienced a happy life prior to their death. 

He does not specifically address in his article if welfatarians should be saved in life-or-death situations.