Home / E. Relativism, freedom and evasions / Part DIR
"It's my personal choice; don't impose your morals."
freedom of choice ends where there is a victim. No one says assaulting someone is a personal choice. The argument only works if it already assumes the animal doesn't count, which is exactly what's being debated. And criticizing a choice isn't imposing anything: it's the same debate we have about any action that affects others.
Note: this chapter treats the choice as a moral question. Whether the state should ban it is a different question, discussed in E4.
Short answer
I agree that personal choices should be respected. The question is whether this choice is only yours. Choosing between coffee and tea affects no one; choosing something that requires an animal's death affects someone who didn't choose. No one says beating a dog is a personal choice. And criticizing a choice isn't imposing: it's talking, as we do about any action that affects others.
For children
You can choose the color of your clothes, the games you like and the cartoon you want to watch. That's your choice, because it doesn't hurt anyone. But if someone wants to push a classmate, they can't say "it's my choice", because the classmate will get hurt. It's the same with animals: when a choice hurts someone who feels pain, it isn't just ours.
"If the choice involves someone who can't choose, is it still only yours?"
Como pode aparecer
"Everyone eats what they want."
"Respect my plate."
"I don't criticize your lettuce."
"Don't tell me what to eat."
"Annoying vegans who want to control other people's lives."
"And if I want to eat meat, what's the problem?"
"My body, my rules."
"Food belongs to the sphere of individual autonomy."
"Everyone has their own truth." (which is E2)
The strongest version
"Everyone eats what they want. I respect your choice; respect mine."
Strongest version (steelman):
- P1In a free society, each person has the right to make decisions about their own life, including what they eat.
- P2Food choices are personal choices.
- P3No one has the right to impose their morals on others' personal choices.
- CSo criticizing meat eaters is imposing a morality on a personal choice, which is illegitimate.
The strong version rests on a valuable idea: the harm principle, set out by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty (1859), according to which the only legitimate reason to interfere with someone's freedom is to prevent harm to others.
The argument is valid. Its soundness fails at P2, because a choice stops being merely personal when it affects another being who can be harmed. And the harm principle itself, taken seriously, gives the opposite answer to the one the argument intends.
Full answer
- a
Reconstruction and diagnosis
The argument classifies food as a "personal choice" from the outset. But that classification is the conclusion that needed proving. A choice is personal when its consequences fall on the one who chooses.
Choice Does it affect only the chooser? Personal? Preferring rice to pasta Yes Yes Smoking alone at home Almost only Largely Drunk driving No: it puts other people at risk No Beating a dog No: the dog suffers No Buying a dead animal to eat No: an animal was bred and killed for it That's what's being debated Calling the last row a "personal choice" assumes the animal is no one. That's why the argument begs the question: it uses as a premise the conclusion that the chapters of family A examine.
- b
Where the argument breaks
1. Every choice with a victim stops being merely personal.
Law and common morality already work this way. Cruelty to animals is a crime in most countries, and no one thinks that violates the freedom of those who'd like to mistreat them.
2. The harm principle works against the argument.
Mill argued that individual freedom should be maximal in what concerns only the individual, and that interference is legitimate to prevent harm to others. If animals can be harmed, and the evidence says they can (A5), eating animals falls precisely on the side of actions that affect others.
3. Criticizing isn't imposing.
Saying something is wrong is a claim that can be discussed, not an imposition. Whoever says "don't impose your morals" is also defending a morality: that this subject should be off-limits. The difference between persuading and imposing lies in the means, and a conversation is the freest means there is.
4. Neutrality is an illusion.
Eating animals isn't the absence of a moral position; it's the dominant position, which seems neutral because it's the most common (E9). Every rule against a harm "imposes" something on whoever would like to cause it: laws against racism, child labor and animal cruelty are, in that sense, impositions.
5. The symmetry is false.
"I don't criticize your lettuce" treats the two choices as equivalent, but only one of them has a victim. Respecting a choice that affects no one is tolerance; demanding the same for a choice that affects someone is asking for an exemption.
6. The reaction comes before the argument.
The feeling that one's freedom is threatened triggers a resistance well known in psychology, reactance, which leads people to defend a choice more strongly precisely when it's questioned. That explains the intensity of the response, not whether it's right.
- c
Data and sources
Source What it says Note Mill, *On Liberty* (1859) The only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over anyone, against their will, is to prevent harm to others Full text on Project Gutenberg UK Animal Welfare Act 2006 Makes causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal an offence Shows individual freedom is already limited when animals are affected; Brazil's Law 9,605/1998 does the same Piazza et al., 2015 Ready-made justifications for eating meat are linked to less guilt and less moral consideration for animals The choice argument works as one of them Brehm, *A Theory of Psychological Reactance* (1966) Perceiving one's freedom as threatened triggers resistance and a hardening of position Academic Press; the theory is reviewed in Steindl and colleagues (2015), open access - d
The strongest counter-reply: the question is controversial, and in a plural society each person decides
The most serious version doesn't deny that animals matter. It says the moral status of animals is a question on which reasonable people disagree, and that in a plural society controversial moral questions should be left to each individual. Just as no one imposes a religion, no one should impose a food ethic.
- e
Why the counter-reply doesn't reach the conclusion
It confuses disagreement with a tie.
Many questions were once controversial, like slavery, and the controversy didn't make them personal choices. Chapter E11 deals with this.
The comparison with religion fails.
A religion concerns the life of whoever practices it; animal ethics concerns whoever is affected by a practice. Religious freedom also ends where there is harm to others.
It mixes morality and law.
Tolerance has limits everyone recognizes.
No one would apply "everyone decides" to gratuitous cruelty to a dog. If there's a limit, the discussion becomes where it lies, not whether it exists.
The counter-reply dismisses the debate it admits.
If the question is controversial, the way forward is to discuss it, not declare it off-limits.
Reasoning errors
Logical
Is the form valid?
Begging the question
False equivalence
Changing the question
Epistemological
Does the evidence support it?
Illusory neutrality
Moral
Is the criterion coherent?
Freedom without a harm limit
Confusing criticism with imposition
Biases
Psychological reactance
Criticism is felt as a threat to freedom and hardens the position
Brehm, 1966; review by Steindl and colleagues, 2015
The 4Ns rationalization
Personal choice works as a ready-made justification, linked to less guilt
Meat paradox
Treating the subject as taste avoids the tension between liking animals and eating them
Extrapolations
The principle being tested is: "what I choose to buy or do is my business alone, even if it affects others".
If it applied to…Cruelty to dogsTap to see
Beating one's own dog would be a personal choice
The law treats it as a crime
If it applied to…Products of slave laborTap to see
Knowingly buying them would be a personal choice, beyond criticism
Almost everyone thinks it's fair to criticize
If it applied to…Drunk drivingTap to see
The risk to others would be the driver's business
The law decides otherwise
If it applied to…CockfightingTap to see
Taking part would be each person's choice
It's banned in many countries
Contradictions
No one defends drunk driving as a personal choice.
Cruelty is a crime, and almost everyone agrees with that.
The same person has opinions about politics, how others raise their children and other people's habits, without thinking they're imposing anything.
It's common for those who say "everyone eats what they want" to be bothered by the choice not to eat animals.
"Don't impose your morals" is itself a moral rule about how others should act.
What the argument gets right
What is true
Individual freedom is an important value, and there's a correct intuition behind the argument: no one likes to be judged, and autonomy over one's own life should be protected from intrusion. It's also true that conversations about food touch on identity, affection and culture, and that the way they're approached matters. Preaching with contempt rarely convinces anyone.
But
But the value of freedom comes precisely from protecting choices that don't harm others. Taken seriously, the same principle that protects your freedom protects those who can't defend themselves. The question isn't whether the choice is yours, but whether it's only yours.
Connections
Usually comes before
Usually comes after
Go deeper in Questão de Ética
Chapters from the open-access collection A Journey Through Animal Ethics that discuss this argument in more detail:
- The Claim That Animal Advocates Are Imposing Their Lifestyle Vol. IV, ch. 18
References
Philosophy
Law
- United Kingdom. Animal Welfare Act 2006.
- Brazil. Law No. 9,605/1998, art. 32 (cruelty to animals) (in Portuguese).