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Paper #4 [Rhetorical Analysis Assignment (2)] (4 ½ pp. double-spaced)
“A Carnivore’s Credo” Word Play
The Treatment of animals has become questionable, whether or not they should be treated
like humans. Roger Scrutons essay, “A Carnivore’s Credo” addresses two opposing audiences,
carnivores and vegetarians. Any given carnivore believes that eating meat is the way of the world
and we are at the top of the world. They believe it is nothing wrong with eating certain animals
and that it is natural for us to do so. Vegetarians believe it is inhuman to slaughter a living and
attempting to connect religion and morality to the killing of animals as being wrong. Scruton
essay secretly argues against vegetarians without stating he was a carnivore at the start of his
essay. Because of that each paragraph gives competing details in favor of either vegetarians or
carnivores. This is good because it makes both audiences feel as though he is on their side. Also
by not giving his thesis in the beginning, he keeps close minded individuals reading until he
gives his reasoning, making you agree, in a way, with him until the very end. By defining the
differences in animals and humans and also by using certain words out of contexts he moves his
audience emotionally in his favor.
Scruton takes a step into the heart of the main subject, which he titles “our relationship to
the natural world” (259). He wants his readers to know that the life of this topic and a main part
of human nature is piety. Piety is “the residue or leftovers of religion in us all, the attitude that
many people are attempting to recapture, a disposition to acknowledge our weak and dependant
stat and to face the surrounding world with due reverence and humility”. This definition he gives
creates an image of the word piety. He makes you visualize your own faults and embarrassments
and with the little dignity left from whatever religion you grew up in let them be known. And
with that attitude people are struggling to readminister into our society, face your peers and
accept their responses.
Scruton takes a step away from the main topic, to touch on something that is also very
important in his argument. “The moral life” he believes consists of three main concepts, value,
virtue, and duty. This paragraph is intended for both of his audiences, so that everyone has the
same understanding of his idea of “The moral life.” This is done by giving views of others who
argue that morality is based mostly on only one of his three concepts, such as value or duty.
Scruton says these simplified claims are near impossible to make because we cannot grasp the
full potential of the moral life without including every detail of value, virtue, and duty,
establishing their place in the “good life.” He replaces the word moral with the word good,
literally forcing his audience to accept that moral means good. Moving his audiences
pathologically by basically saying, you’re not living a good life unless these three concepts are
known and followed.
Scrutons most important task was to distinguish humans from animals by characterizing
our mental capabilities. “Unlike other animals, we are self-conscious and we do not live as they
do, only in the ‘world of perception’” (260). Everything we do is different except the way we, as
in all animals, see physical features. Like a shoe looks like a shoe to both man and animal but to
humans it’s either a sports shoe or dress shoe, etc. Scruton states “our thoughts and feelings
range over the actual and the possible, the probable and the necessary, what will be and what
ought to be”. “The actual and the possible”, like I actually don’t like her but it’s possible to fall
in love with anyone. “The probable and necessary”, I probably should go out with my friends
because I’m bored but it’s necessary for me to finish this paper for Mr. Trimble in order to pass
my class. “What will be and what ought to be”, these links between our thoughts and feelings
gives a sense of unacknowledged superiority of a “self-conscious being.” Scruton further
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distinguishes humans from animals by describing the way humans deal with a human corpse and
the emotions that are experienced. Scruton say these emotions “belongs to the philosophically
neglected realm of the psyche I have called piety” (261). That statement was taking a shot at his
vegetarian audience saying, animals can’t even show emotion or respect to one of its dead
members of its species. So why should we? The human corpse deserves more respect than that of
an animal, “its former occupant surrounds it like an aura, demanding to be mourned” (261).
Driving a wedge between human's and animal's mental capabilities was key in moving his
audience toward his true goal, his concluding thoughts that everyone must eat meat. Scruton does
acknowledge pets as nearly members of human society by showing that animals are as important
as humans to other humans. This was good because it keeps his audience guessing as to whether
he’s a vegetarian or carnivore
Scruton connects religion with his argument by saying “if God takes an interest in what
we eat, it can only be because eating and ingesting are acts not only of the body but also of the
soul. Yet dietary codes do not prohibit us from defiling the corpses of other animals” (261). This
way of looking at his argument makes it harder for anti-meat eaters to argue using religion
because God did not say “don’t eat meat.” So vegetarians who may think it’s inhumane cannot
argue that it’s religiously wrong.
“...with no shortage of sermons directed at hunters, fur wearers, and carnivores...” (259).
Scruton uses the word sermons instead of speeches or lectures in order to show that a lot of the
time people against the murder of animals try to preach that murdering of any creature is
religiously wrong. He refers to these people as “puritans” because they speak as though are free
of any guilt and are the deliverers of the sermon to these piety wielding individuals.
Scruton opens his essay with “the treatment of animals has become a matter of ordinary
morality” in order to capture a larger audience, opposed to if he had said “eating animals has
become a matter of ordinary morality” (259). The treatment of animals captures cat lovers, dog
lovers and any other typical household pets that you sometimes find being neglected by what I
would call deranged individuals. People who treat their pets with love and care would still sit at
the dinner table and eat a turkey, cow meat, pig meat, and certain types of fish simply because
carnivores do not consider these animals as “honorary members of the moral community”. This
strategic opening also attracts his “puritans” because they care for the mere treatment of all
animals. Now after he has established the “treatment of animals” as a big problem pertaining to
our moral life, he shortens the topic to just the eating of animals has become questionable.
Because now he has hooked his readers into wanting to read his essay so he gives this false thesis
statement.
Scruton makes the eating of food mean the eating of meat by replacing the word meat
with the word food in his essay. He does this by first stating us as moral beings don’t feed; we
eat “The fact that eating, for us, is not what it is for other animals is related to the fact that we are
moral beings” (262). Then he connects eating to food through our old traditions as moral beings.
“Eating has in every traditional society been regarded as a social, often religious, act embellished
by ritual and enjoyed as a primary celebration of membership.” Lastly he connects food to meat
by replacing the word meat with food in his essay. “Rational beings are nourished on
conversation, taste, manners, and hospitality, and to divorce food from these practices is to
deprive it of its true significance.” Scruton connected these two words in order to persuade his
audience that meat is related to us as moral beings, and to touch on the audiences own beliefs
that they are rational beings. They do not want to deprive eating of its true significance
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While attempting to get both carnivores and vegetarians to understand each other, he uses
the word peace as though the two audiences were in a physical war. Scruton offers a proposal
“we should not abandon our meat-eating habits but remoralize them, by reincorporating them
into affectionate human relations and using them as instruments of hospitality, conviviality” and
most of all “peace”. The word peace is not normally used when choosing between either
vegetarianism or carnivorous behavior but when he used it. Doing so made the debate between
the two seem violent and it created an immediate need for a solution to this issue.
Scruton closing paragraph finally states his thesis, “I would suggest that it is not only
permissible for those who care about animals to eat meat; they have a duty to do so.” If you care
how animals are raised, how they are feed, if you enjoy its well being then you should eat your
friend, “A Carnivores Credo”. Scruton essay appealed to the emotions and values of his
audiences. He never gave his audience his true belief in order to bait them into his way of
thinking. What he gave them were values that rational beings would deem righteous and just
when he got them to agree with his reasoning he tells them to eat meat. His concepts and
examples he uses are all angled in his overall favor and taking words out of normal context
tricked some of his audiences. The fact that he lead with no true thesis was brilliant because it
practically forced the audience into believing that he would argue in one of their favor and it
made people just want to read his essay.