The College Fix
recently reported on Michael Plant, a
research fellow at Oxford University’s Wellbeing Research Centre. The Oxford
University “philosopher” argued, in the aptly named Journal of Controversial Ideas,
that it is “plausible” that there is a moral case for letting meat
eaters drown.
Not
surprising given his last name is “plant,” and radical vegan Peter Singer is on
the editorial board of the Journal of Controversial Ideas.
Plant avers that, in
a given hypothetical situation, it could be justified to let people who eat
meat drown, rather than attempt to save them, because they cause “suffering” to
animals.
Huh?
Per The College Fix, Plant wrote that many people
accept a duty to save strangers’ lives, such as a child drowning in a pond,
while also accepting that it is wrong to cause the suffering of animals in
factory farms. Ergo, according to Plant, this creates a major problem for those
who accept and practice the vegan lifestyle. Why? Because both of these moral
principles are actually in conflict with one another if the person in danger is
a meat eater and therefore the cause of continued animal suffering.
You’ve gotta be kidding me.
It is okay to let a fellow human drown because
of his or her diet? Really? So, Singer, is it similarly immoral to rescue a
carnivorous or omnivorous animal? Or to
prevent it from suffering, Plant?
It seems the higher up one is in today’s educational
system, the lower one’s IQ-- and the more one lacks in wisdom,
rationality, morality…and sanity. It appears Oxford’s Wellbeing Research
Centre has a lot more work to do when it comes to its research fellows.
Or maybe it’s part of the illness, not the cure.
If the Journal of Controversial Ideas was really
brave, really wanted to push the envelope, especially amongst the academic
community, it would publish ideas such as “is there a moral case for
capitalism,” “is it plausible that there are two-- and only two-- genders,” or
“could it be that people have inalienable rights granted to them by a Creator?”
Maybe it could even purport to defend Christianity, federalism, the Electoral
College, or Thomas Jefferson.
Nah. No academic journal could ever be that controversial,
could it?
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