Post 5 (340): Consider the Grass

Back in high school, when I was in charge of a small garden on the roof of the music classroom, I wanted to grow some roses and “fancy” flowers. Thus, I purchased some rose seeds as well as herbicides to remove the vigorous grasses and create room for roses. Weeks later, when my supervisor asked me to write a reflection paper, I had some deep thoughts.

The topic was regarding ethical issues and I began to consider if I should not cruelly kill the weeds since they were lives as well. When I removed them to create a better living environment for roses, I actually categorized different plants and ranked them according to human standards of “beauty” or public aesthetics. However, when I handed in my such thoughts, my supervisor considered it gibberish.

Now, I have another chance to rethink this question. Similar to what Wallace discussed in “Consider the Lobster”, should human beings decide which creatures to be eliminated, consumed, or preserved based on our own preferences? Is it ethical for humans to decide the destiny “for” other lives? Does this mean humans consider themselves a higher level of existence in the natural hierarchy?

Such questions are very idealistic and deconstructable and if we follow such a path, many similar questions can be asked without proper answers. Hence, I want to employ a pragmatic approach just like Wallace presenting various ways to kill a lobster at minimum pain. In the case of weeds and roses, we should consider the opportunity cost of each option. If we let the weeds grow freely, they may take up the major nutrients and weaken the roses; if we preserve the roses, weeds need to be removed. In other words, since the preservation of any one plant will eventually hurt the other, the two options are the same to some extent. Hence, there is no more entanglement to choose which plant to preserve.

Similarly, we have to first kill chickens, pigs, or cows, and then eat them. If we do not eat meat, we will suffer protein shortage; if we eat these animals, they will die. Thus, no matter which path we follow, one group will undergo loss to benefit the other. In other words, this is a zero-sum game, thus we do not have to feel guilty for eating other animals (or removing the grass); it is an inevitable and necessary outcome. To make this action more ethical and considerable, as Wallace mentioned in his piece, we ought to fasten the process of killing and minimizing the pain for animals.