Discuss Question - AllPreviousYears

Read the passage given below and answer the questions: (From 130 to 140) It's a common enough scenario. A vegetarian has been invited to a friend's place for dinner. The host forgets that the guest is a vegetarian, and places a [meat] chop in front of her. What is she to do? Probably her initial feelings will be of disgust and repulsion. Vegetarians often develop these sorts of attitudes towards meat-based food, making it easier for them to be absolutists about shunning meat. Suppose, though, that the vegetarian overcomes her feelings of distaste, and decides to eat the chop, perhaps out of politeness to her host. Has she done something morally reprehensible? Because eating meat typically supports the practice of raising animals in factory farms where they are inhumanely treated and killed, eating meat is likely to contribute to animal suffering ( or to the other bad consequences of factory farming)...... However, by not eating meat, and especially by not eating meat when they are offered it in front of non-vegetarians, vegetarians send out a message to other people. By sticking to their ethical commitment, vegetarians signal that there is something wrong with being a carnivore, thus prompting other people to consider the morality of their habit of eating meat and perhaps even persuading them that consuming meat is wrong. In other words, the positive impact of being a vegetarian, in terms of reduction of animal suffering, might be amplified when vegetarianism is publicly defended and demonstrated in social contexts. And, conversely, making exceptions to vegetarianism might convey the message that eating meat is not so bad after all. If even vegetarians sometimes eat meat, then eating meat can't be so reprehensible from a moral perspective, can it? So reprehensible from a moral perspective, can it? So perhaps the guest who ate the [meat] chop was morally wrong for this reason: she sent out the wrong message to the people who were having dinner with her. But it isn't as simple as that. Avoiding meat in all circumstances, including in the circumstances in which the vegetarian guest found herself, is a strategy that can backfire. Plausibly, the 'right' message to be sent to non-vegetarians is one that increases the chances that as many of them as possible will give up meat or at least reduce their meat consumption. If people perceive vegetarianism as a position that allows for to exception, they are probably less likely to become vegetarian. A flexible moral position is more appealing than a rigid one that allows for no exceptions. It is more likely that people would be convinced to become flexible vegetarians - that is, that they abstain from eating meat with some exceptions - that to become rigid vegetarian, and being a flexible vegetarian is preferable, from a moral perspective, to being a carnivore. So the vegetarian guest's eating meat when offered has probably shown the host that it is possible to be a (flexible) vegetarian and, at the same time, occasionally enjoy some meat without feeling guilty. This has certainly made (flexible) vegetarianism look more accessible and more appealing than it would have been if the guest had refused to eat meat. At the end of paragraph 3, why does the author say that " the guest who ate the [meat] chop was morally wrong"?

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