Would you kick a cow?

In your mind's eye, I want you to imagine yourself on a farm. Be as specific and detailed as you like: smell the grass, feel the cool breeze on your skin, the warm sun on your face, listen to the tractor working in the background, the sounds of dozens of farmhands reaping the produce of a bountiful harvest... 

Imagine that I were to walk up to you, take you by the hand, and lead you to an enclosure. This enclosure houses Bessy, the family cow. She trots up to you, licks your hand, and snuggles her head under your chin.

Left alone in the enclosure, what would you do next? Would you hug Bessy? Would you cuddle with her? Scratch her ears, pet her head, give her food?

Whatever you said, I'm sure (as sure as I could be about anything) that you didn't say that you'd kick her. You're not a monster, surely, and wouldn't want to cause her any unnecessary pain. 

Before proceeding, here are a few important questions to consider:

1) Assuming you are resistant to the prospect of kicking Bessy, would you feel the same resistance if I suggested you kick a rock? A tree? A wall? Why or why not?

2) Is this resistance merely pragmatic, based on the fact that you gain nothing from the action? Or is it more ethically based, based on the feeling of guilt of hurting a presumably sentient cow?

If I told you that I would offer you money to kick her, what would your price be? One dollar, ten, fifty, a thousand? No one has to know about this, it could be our little secret, and you need not fear any societal repercussions. What would you say now? Are you at least a bit more tempted to kick Bessy? 

What if I didn't offer you money but I offered you a good lunch, would you agree then? If I invited you to my barbecue and grilled a burger for you, could I convince you to give Bessy a solid kick? 

I've posed this question dozens of times and not once has anyone answered in the affirmative. If experience indicates anything, you're not the first person to say that you'd kick the cow, but if you are, I'd love to continue this conversation in person. If not, though I fear I've already betrayed my intentions and biases, I will go on.

Imagine I gave you the same offer with one modification: you wouldn't have to kick Bessy directly, you'd just have to press a button and a machine would do it. Would you agree then?

What if you were able to press that button with Bessy behind a closed door so you didn't even have to see or hear her pain? 

What if you could nominate a kicker to do the action for you; would that make a moral difference?

What if it you didn't have to kick her but you had to hire someone to separate her from her mother at birth, raise her in cramped conditions, forcibly impregnate her every few months and separate her from her calves when they were born, milk her (literally and figuratively) for every drop she could make for her owners, leave her with underqualified, undertrained, potentially abusive farmhands until the day she stops producing milk, and then cart her off to a slaughterhouse to shoot a nail through her skull or slice a knife across her neck, all for the explicit purpose of stripping her carcass down to consume her flesh... 

Would you accept my invitation to the barbecue now?

In my experience, nobody I have ever posed this question to agreed to kick the cow, and I don't have any reason to believe that the overwhelming majority of meat eaters would agree to do that. Most people are good and aren't okay with causing unnecessary pain, yet all flesh-consumers give tacit consent to the last paragraph of my thought experiment by supporting the meat industry. I find that fascinating. 

What to do about this is another discussion, one I will hopefully cover in a future blog post. In the meantime, I leave you with this. 

Just something to think about.

Thank you for your time.
As always, with love
Avi Hoffman