Humans Are at the Top of the Food Chain by Earthling Ed Lyrics
Humans are at the top of the food chain. That is why we are morally justified to kill and eat animals.
This is a very common justification that people use to excuse their consumption of animal products.
Now, the food chains that exist in nature are incredibly important. They represent the natural order and help maintain healthy populations of animals and maintain the ecology. But the things that we do to animals, when we selectively breed them, when we artificially inseminate them, whеn we mutilate babies, whеn we exploit them for what is rightfully theirs, like their milk and their eggs, when we put them into trucks, take them to a slaughterhouse where we hang them upside down and cut their throat could not be further removed from nature. It has nothing to do with a food chain.
You see, the food chain that we reference when we try to justify our consumption of animal products is a man-made construct conveniently created to justify something that is entirely unnecessary. It ignores the incredibly complex and independent web of life that form the natural ecosystems. And we've created it in order to justify our assertion that we are the dominant and most powerful species in the animal kingdom. We think that by claiming our actions fall under the natural order, we can therefore defend the fact that we breed and kill billions of animals every single year. But the food chain argument is only there to try and assert the fact that we think we are the superior species.
If we look throughout our history, all atrocities were committed by people that felt that they were superior, and that their worth of life was higher than those that they were oppressing. Our oppression of animals is based on that same ideology; that we are superior based on superficial reasons, like appearance and species. But in reality, their right to live is just the same as ours, and the fact that they have life means that they want to live it. And because they have a preference to live, that means we should respect their preference to live. And because we don't have any necessary reason to kill them, we cannot morally justify taking their life.
The food chain that we reference, that we try to justify killing animals, doesn't exist. It is not part of the natural order, it does not help maintain ecosystems. In fact, it does the opposite. Because by consuming animals, we're destroying environments, we're destroying habitats, we're decimating animal populations.
And as humans, we have moral agency, which means that we are able to make decisions based on a notion of right and wrong, which means we can also be held accountable for the decisions that we make. Our actions are not predetermined for us by nature. Our actions are there for us to decide. And with our moral agency, we're obliged to make the decisions that cause the least amount of suffering to living beings, and being vegan is the least that we can do to cause the least amount of suffering to other living beings.
Because we are the most dominant species, that means that we have a responsibility to care and look after those that are more vulnerable than us, not exploit them. Animals that are on top of the food chain, truly at the top of the food chain, like polar bears and sharks, kill other animals because they have to to survive. We don't have to to survive. There is no necessity for us to kill animals, which means that it cannot be morally justified, and it certainly cannot be morally justified with the concept of a food chain.
This is a very common justification that people use to excuse their consumption of animal products.
Now, the food chains that exist in nature are incredibly important. They represent the natural order and help maintain healthy populations of animals and maintain the ecology. But the things that we do to animals, when we selectively breed them, when we artificially inseminate them, whеn we mutilate babies, whеn we exploit them for what is rightfully theirs, like their milk and their eggs, when we put them into trucks, take them to a slaughterhouse where we hang them upside down and cut their throat could not be further removed from nature. It has nothing to do with a food chain.
You see, the food chain that we reference when we try to justify our consumption of animal products is a man-made construct conveniently created to justify something that is entirely unnecessary. It ignores the incredibly complex and independent web of life that form the natural ecosystems. And we've created it in order to justify our assertion that we are the dominant and most powerful species in the animal kingdom. We think that by claiming our actions fall under the natural order, we can therefore defend the fact that we breed and kill billions of animals every single year. But the food chain argument is only there to try and assert the fact that we think we are the superior species.
If we look throughout our history, all atrocities were committed by people that felt that they were superior, and that their worth of life was higher than those that they were oppressing. Our oppression of animals is based on that same ideology; that we are superior based on superficial reasons, like appearance and species. But in reality, their right to live is just the same as ours, and the fact that they have life means that they want to live it. And because they have a preference to live, that means we should respect their preference to live. And because we don't have any necessary reason to kill them, we cannot morally justify taking their life.
The food chain that we reference, that we try to justify killing animals, doesn't exist. It is not part of the natural order, it does not help maintain ecosystems. In fact, it does the opposite. Because by consuming animals, we're destroying environments, we're destroying habitats, we're decimating animal populations.
And as humans, we have moral agency, which means that we are able to make decisions based on a notion of right and wrong, which means we can also be held accountable for the decisions that we make. Our actions are not predetermined for us by nature. Our actions are there for us to decide. And with our moral agency, we're obliged to make the decisions that cause the least amount of suffering to living beings, and being vegan is the least that we can do to cause the least amount of suffering to other living beings.
Because we are the most dominant species, that means that we have a responsibility to care and look after those that are more vulnerable than us, not exploit them. Animals that are on top of the food chain, truly at the top of the food chain, like polar bears and sharks, kill other animals because they have to to survive. We don't have to to survive. There is no necessity for us to kill animals, which means that it cannot be morally justified, and it certainly cannot be morally justified with the concept of a food chain.