contrasted the “revoltingly crude” attitudes to animals
prevalentinWesternphilosophy andreligion withthose of
BuddhistsandHindus.Hisproseissharpandscornful,and
many of his acute criticismsof Western attitudes are still
appropriate today. After one particularly biting passage,
however, Schopenhauer briefly considers the question of
killingforfood.Hecanhardlydenythathumanbeingscan
livewithoutkilling—heknowstoo muchabouttheHindus
forthat—butheclaimsthat“withoutanimalfoodthehuman
racecouldnotevenexistintheNorth.”Schopenhauergives
nobasisforthis geographicaldistinction,althoughhe does
addthatthedeathoftheanimalshouldbemade“eveneasier”
by means of chloroform.^47
EvenBentham,whostatedsoclearlytheneedtoextendrights
to nonhumans, flinched at this point:
Thereisverygoodreasonwhyweshouldbesufferedtoeat
suchofthemasweliketoeat;wearethebetterforit,and
they arenever the worse.They have none of those long-
protractedanticipationsoffuturemiserywhichwehave.The
deaththeysufferinourhandscommonlyis,andalwaysmay
be,aspeedier,andbythatmeansalesspainfulone,thanthat
which would await them in the inevitable course of nature.
OnecannothelpfeelingthatinthesepassagesSchopenhauer
and Bentham lowered theirnormal standards of argument.
Quite apart from the question of the morality of painless
killing, neither Schopenhauer nor Bentham considers the
suffering necessarily involved in rearing and slaughtering
animals on a commercial basis. Whatever the purely
theoreticalpossibilitiesofpainlesskillingmaybe,thelarge-
scalekillingofanimals forfoodisnotandneverhasbeen