The debate over whether or not we should be eating animal products is slowly heating up. The debate can be found in science journals, religious circles and popular mass media. It is an argument that can shoot off of global warming, evolution, religion, politics, economics, civil rights, animal rights and (because Americans spend so much time and money eating) anything else.

With every meal we make choices, and our final decisions are based on our own personal code of ethics. This code of ethics, shifting from individual to individual, helps make the human race as socially diverse as it is. Many people believe in a kind of ‘universal’ code, that we should all adhere to, if we do not already. Although the idea might strike one as oppressive and forbearing of a monochromatic human race, many morals are already shared by cultures across the globe.

Diet, however, is not one of them.

Around the world, one’s diet is based off of what is immediately available. In many places, the debates over whether to be a vegetarian or not does not even exist because it is not a choice one can make.

In Oberlin, we do have a choice. Choices are readily available to us through CDS and OSCA. We even have our choice of restaurants and menus downtown. And so we make a choice: we choose to eat meat, or only eat vegetables, or only consume fruits that have fallen from the tree naturally or any number of variations. The choices that we make come from a greater personal code of ethics.

But what if we did not have choice? Should we only stick to a specific diet? And what moral laws should guide that?

This is a topic that people can get emotional over. It is also a topic with a huge range of opinions. Over the next few weeks, The Ethical Obie will examine the ethics of diet in Oberlin. In the next issue, a comprehensive primer (an “Ethical Diet 101”) will be presented here. Between now and the end of Spring Break, The Ethical Obie will be taking YOUR responses, thoughts and opinions, and printing them in the following Review.

So tell us, ethical reader, what are you eating, and why?

–Jay Nolan

The Ethical Obie

Please send responses, thoughts and opinions to

theethicalobie@gmail.com