Paper #3 [Rhetorical Analysis Assignment (2)] (4 full pp. double-spaced)
How To Eat Your Friends Properly: A Rhetorical Analysis of Roger Scruton’s “A Carnivores Credo”
“Duty requires us, therefore, to eat out friends”, a very strong ending statement made by Roger
Scruton in “A Carnivores Credo”. This essay was written to relate to the entire world, meat eaters and
vegetarians. Scrutons essay consisted primarily of his use of pathos and his boost of ethos, which will be
explained later in the essay. Scruton mainly uses pathetic and ethical appeals with guilt, humor, evidence
and analogies in his essay by taking us through the consciences of humans, morality, and piety. The guilt
opens the audience up emotionally, and while doing so, he floods them with plenty of evidence and
analogies to awaken the mind. This is done because he is trying to persuade his audience to revert back
to the traditional ways of human morality.
As stated above, pathos was a big factor in his attempt to changing the mindset of his audience.
In the opening of this essay, he talks about how the treatment of animals was once a religious issue but
now is a matter of ordinary morality. That statement means that we base things on what we think is right
and wrong. Scruton believes that morality rests upon three
pillars which are value, virtue and duty. He then explains how moral life cannot be based on just one
that all three need to be taken into account in order to understand fully of moral life.
Within the appeal of pathos, guilt was a key element in getting his point across and he used it
repeatedly. Scruton centers the very subject of morality on what he calls piety. Piety can be thought of as
dutiful respect and fulfillment of religious responsibility. Many people that share Scrutons interest in
piety include the “environmentalists, conservationists, and welfare activists” are attempting to make us
“acknowledge our weak and dependent state and to face the surrounding world with due reverence and
humility”, and recognize that the welfare of the earth is of greater importance than our individual
happiness.
As stated above, environmentalists, conservationists, and welfare activists all share the interest of
piety and Scruton does. Environmentalists work to protect our environment from harm, conservationists
attempt to conserve the environment, and welfare activists help in the circumstances of poor situations.
These three are affiliated with piety because their common goal is to make the world a better place.
Scruton gets into depth in the next few paragraphs about human self consciousness. Scruton
explains, “Unlike other animals, we are self-conscious. We do not live, as they do, only in the “world of
perception”, to use Schopenhauer’s phrase (260). Our thoughts and feelings range over the actual and
the possible, the probable and the necessary, what will be and what ought to be.”(260) I believe he is
trying to imbed into our minds that we are the ones with a conscience and we have the intelligence to
understand the difference between right and wrong. Animals on the other hand, know little about what’s
going on in the world, or as Scruton put it,
“their moral incompetence”. Realizing this made me reconsider eating animals like I have been doing in
the past. Scruton helped me to put myself in their shoes, so to speak. Would I want someone taking
advantage of me just because I am not strong or knowledgeable enough to put a stop to it? I think not.
The essay was not only an awakening to me as a proactive reader but also as a person in general. The
consciousness of humans is probably his strongest example of his sense of pathos because he is bringing
out his audiences emotions, specifically guilt, by making us think, since we are supposed to be the wise
and conscience ones, why do most of us make such irrational decisions. Scruton is talking to people as a
whole, not separating them into separate categories and such. He also explains that we are judging
beings because we become cut off from our instincts because we are constantly judging our actions from
an outside view as others would judge us. This lessens the joy that we get from friendship because we
are constantly judging each other.
Scruton’s essay is really pushing the old meat eating habits to “remoralize” our appreciation that
we have been so blessed with. He also brings up religious guilt and emotion as what piety also stands
for. “And I suspect people become vegetarians for precisely that reason: by doing so they overcome the
residue of guilt that attaches to every form of hubris, and in particular to the hubris of human freedom.”
(264). Due to the fact that every person has a conscience, the readers and audience connect to the author
on more of an emotional and trustworthy level. Scruton is connecting to all the religious beliefs of
people and morality. He is trying to say that you can eat what you please but it’s our duty to
“reincorporating them into affectionate human relations and using them as instruments of hospitality,
conviviality, and peace.” (264)
On the other hand, Scrutons ethical appeal is what really made his essay solid. Although it is his
humor that will linger in the minds of his audience when continuing in the reading of his essay and
being referred back to, his unbiased opinions and arguments are also what build his sense of ethos.
“Keeping them on open pasture in the summer and in warm roomy barns in the winter, feeding them on
grass, silage, beans, and maize, attending to their ailments...” (263) He is explaining that these types of
farmers are giving their cattle the highest quality of living that they could possibly have and it should be
defended. It is very different from battery pig farming, and that all animal lovers should recognize this.
Scruton is explaining that it is not only vegetarians who are concerned about the well being of animals
but meat eaters are too. Yes we may eat meat, but we also want them to be treated with respect and love
for as long as they can until their day has come. Meat eaters along with vegetarians believe animals
should not be tortured and maltreated. Scruton is trying to emphasize the fact that although our choices
in food are different the morality of animals remains equal.
Humor was a shrewd tactic that Scruton used in his essay that definitely sky rocketed his sense
of ethos. I believe his most valid and key points were explained through humor. He would draw people
in with a sarcastic remark or funny statement and then going into depth of the real issue at hand. “So far
as I know, people do not eat their pets” (261), provides us with a source of comic relief. What is nice
about this is that he has been talking very serious the whole time, but now you see a more humorous side
of the author. This brings in the fact that the audience should pay more respects to the animals that they
eat because at the end of the day they are animals. Then he goes on to say that religions put prohibitions
on the way we eat meat, and that shows that it is more than just a physical act. When people used to eat
together it was a way
to come together and enjoy the times that they spent together. Time have since changed we are now
living in a world of TV dinners and solitary stuffing of junk. This is where Scruton the difference
between eating and feeding, or as he liked to put “virtuous and vicious” eating.
“Duty requires us, therefore, to eat our friends”, as mentioned in the beginning of this essay,
Scruton uses this as the closing sentence in his. The author again uses his sense of humor in order to end
his essay on a less serious note, and to leave the readers thinking. Scruton was able to use this at the end
of his essay because he already gained enough credibility and trustworthiness throughout the length of
his essay without sounding completely obnoxious. If he would have made these comments in the
beginning of the essay, he would have either came off extremely unattractive or not taken on a serious
note.
In conclusion the essay turned out to be very effective in the matter of persuasiveness. The
author uses pathetic and ethical appeals with guilt, humor, evidence and analogies in his essay by taking
us through the consciences of humans, morality, and piety. The composition of the essay is to persuade
his audience to revert back to the traditional ways of human morality.
Works Cited
The Best American Essays 2007 (The Best American Series). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. Print.