“Never eat anything with a face”: Ontology and ethics

Abstract

As a vegetarian for several decades, Sue Hendler had a criterion for what could and could not be consumed: “Never eat anything that has a face.” Indeed, she once chided me, on those grounds, for eating shrimps. Her criterion exemplifies two important aspects of ethical decision-making. First, what ought to be done or not done depends upon what entities one is dealing with and deciding about. In other words, good ethics depends upon sound metaphysics; moral decision-making is, in part, a function of one’s ontology. Second, what something is (its ontology) to us as human beings—for example, a “being with a face”—partly depends upon how we relate to it, because how we relate to something makes some of its characteristics more salient than others, and even (in some cases) creates those characteristics. In other words, ontological identity is, in part, relational, and relating and relationships are core contributors to good ethical reasoning. This paper explores and elaborates upon these two fundamental claims, and shows how Sue Hendler supported these ideas in her life and in her work as a feminist planner.