Keywords

meat-eating, food culture, animal liberation

Objectives

The objective of this research is to focus on meat-eating as one of the elements in human food consumption, to examine the relationship between ecological adaptation and cultural status, and to explore the changing character of meat-eating in today’s consumer culture, including possible future trends. During human evolution, both meat and vegetables have been part of ecological adaptions, and their consumption has been shaped by cultural behavior reflecting social status. The use of meat for redistribution, sharing, and sacrifice, together with taboos and rules surrounding meat, all point to important social functions clarified by anthropology. Since the industrialization of the production and distribution of meat in the second half of the 20th century, meat-eating has become everyday in societies with advanced economies. Meanwhile, scenes of taking meat from animals have faded from everyday life. This is the social context in which, in Europe in particular, ethical movements exemplified by “Animal Liberation” have spurred a growing debate over animal rights and whether meat should be eaten at all. Most of this debate has, however, been framed by utilitarianism and duty discourses. The distinctive relationships between humans and animals in different societies and cultural traditions have not received the attention they deserve. Besides clarifying the tangled web of issues related to meat-eating, this research will also consider the proper role of meat in today’s global consumer society. It will also aim to bring a fresh viewpoint to the relationship between humanity and animals.

Research Results

This research conducted interdisciplinary studies, joined by researchers from a wide range of fields including economics, psychology, veterinary science, nutrition science and primatology while centering on anthropology and ethnology, to follow the research objective set out at the beginning. One of the conclusions reached in this joint research was that meat-eating was an ecologically adaptable behavior but at the same time it was also a behavior with an extremely strong cultural aspect, which was an essential factor in characterizing human society. Our comparative studies of primatology, human evolutionary studies and the study of a hunter-gatherer society shed light on the attributes of meat-eating as being “planned” and “done with knowledge,” and also clarified that a turning point from the ecological aspect to the cultural aspect of meat-eating provided clues in solving the so-called phenomenon of “encephalization or humanization.” Also, by linking the arguments from an ethnographical viewpoint with the psychological examination, we clarified that the following four factors were a specific determinant for or against meat-eating and produced phenomena in which meat-eating was culturally restricted or eating a certain type of food was prohibited: (1) physiological attributes (“Is the meat rotten or not?”), (2) epistemological attributes (“Is it possible to forecast whether we can obtain the meat or not with our knowledge?”), (3) cultural attributes (“People do not eat meat or are not allowed to eat meat according to custom”), and (4) personal attributes (“People do not feel like eating meat”). Also, having paid attention to issues in contemporary society, this research also held meetings to study the position and change of meat-eating in this globalizing society and the issues relating to the ethics for meat-eating and slaughter. We discussed the future foreknowledge of meat-eating in a globalized world and the contradiction incurred between meat production and consumption in the mass-production society. Our discussion also went further to pursue the possibility of linking ethical standards in the “West” and the “East” concerning the position of meat-eating behavior in their ethical standards.

Having held “meat-eating behavior” as our specific subject for discussions, this research team made highly specialized reports on each field by the members of this research, and conducted interdisciplinary discussions in relation to those reports. These activities resulted not only in our pursuit of what “meat-eating behavior” meant to human beings but also in the development of our discussions about exclusive structures characteristic to human beings, such as racism and violence.