On Abstinence from Eating Animals (Koine Greek: Περὶ ἀποχῆς ἐμψύχων, romanized: Peri apochēs empsychōn; Latin: De abstinentia ab esu animalium) is a 3rd-century treatise by Porphyry on the ethics of vegetarianism. The four-book treatise was composed by the philosopher as an open letter to Castricius Firmus, a fellow pupil of Plotinus who had renounced a vegetarian diet. De abstinentia is the most detailed surviving work discussing vegetarianism from classical antiquity. Porphyry advocates for vegetarianism on both spiritual and ethical grounds, applying arguments from his own school of Neoplatonism to counter those in favour of meat-eating from the Stoic, Peripatetic, and Epicurean schools. Porphyry argues that there is a moral obligation to extend justice to animals because they are rational beings. He discusses societies that have been historically vegetarian, the implications of metempsychosis (transmigration of the soul), and offers arguments against animal sacrifice. Porphyry directs his discourse towards philosophers, and does not advocate that people such as soldiers or athletes adopt a vegetarian diet. According to philosopher Daniel Dombrowski, in De abstinentia Porphyry originated the argument from marginal cases, that is, that if animals are not afforded moral status, then neither should "marginal cases" of human beings such as infants, persons with severe cognitive disabilities, and the senile. The treatise is written in Koine Greek but is often referred to in academia by the abbreviation of its Latin name, De abstinentia. While the manuscript traditions of the text seem to faithfully represent Porphyry's ideas and arguments, they contain errors and lack fidelity to the original. The entirety of the work is extant except for the ending of the fourth book.
Background
Porphyry was born c. 234 in Tyre, Roman Phoenicia. He studied under Plotinus and promulgated the philosophy of the Neoplatonists. He composed original works in Greek and wrote On Abstinence from Eating Animals between 263 and 301, most probably between the years 268 and 271 when he was living in Sicily. Porphyry composed De abstinentia as an extended open letter to Castricius Firmus, a fellow pupil of Plotinus who had renounced vegetarianism and began eating meat after converting to a Peripatetic philosophy, possibly around 270. Castricius Firmus did not find a vegetarian diet to be justifiable in theory and found that it was irreconcilable with the demands of public life and established religion. He made public statements to explain his attitude and offered arguments to justify a meat-eating diet. As a treatise that collects various arguments for and against vegetarianism, De abstinentia is evidence of the existence of a wider debate on the subject during Porphyry's times. It follows other works from classical antiquity that address vegetarianism and animal ethics, including Plutarch's Odysseus and Gryllus, On Animal Cleverness, and On the Eating of Flesh, all of which were collected in the Moralia. In addition to Plutarch, several of Porphyry's philosophical predecessors were known to be or thought to have been vegetarian, including Pythagoras, Seneca the Younger, Empedocles, Theophrastus, and Ovid.
Overview In Porphyry's four-book treatise, he introduces various arguments to induce Castricius Firmus to return to a vegetarian diet. De abstinentia includes a polemical review of arguments both for and against vegetarianism. It draws on quotations, empirical reports, and arguments derived from other authors. Many of the arguments that Porphyry raises are rebuttals to arguments for meat-eating that were common to his era. The rationales offered for adopting a vegetarian diet are quite varied, and include beliefs in the transmigration of the soul, that meat-eating is detrimental to the soul or the body, and that it causes unnecessary suffering in animals. The treatise raises the philosophical questions of whether non-human animals are rational, whether they have souls, and how the concept of justice should then be applied to them. The entirety of De abstinentia is extant except for the ending of the fourth book.
Contents
Book I In Book I of On Abstinence from Eating Animals, Porphyry provides summaries of several arguments in opposition to vegetarianism. He refutes these arguments, using agonistic imagery, metaphors, and vocabulary. He reasons that abstention from eating meat is a crucial element of the Platonist philosophy and points to the traditional vegetarianism of Greek philosophers such as Empedocles and Pythagoras. Porphyry argues that Castricius Firmus has been influenced by Stoic and Epicurean arguments against the "ethical necessity of a vegetarian diet". Porphyry rejects the Stoic position that justice would be confounded if humanity did not have a status above that of other animals. He draws on Plutarch's criticism of the Stoics' cruelty towards animals to counter arguments, including that of Clodius of Naples from his lost work Against the Vegetarians. Porphyry follows the ascetic supposition of Plotinus that gratification of the body turns the soul away from true good and the intellectual perfection of the soul. His arguments for abstaining from eating animals are informed by the goal of being free from the sensible realm and the body by living a life as close as possible to the intelligible realm. By Porphyry's logic, the consumption of animals is an unnecessary luxury and a gratification of the body and therefore, of the irrational aspect of the soul.
Porphyry also argues for a vegetarian diet as a matter of justice, as he considers harming entities who have no intention of causing people harm to be unjust. Porphyry argues that animal slaughter in particular is unjust and that a vegetarian diet is necessary to achieve purificatory justice. Some of Porphyry's arguments extend to the use of animal products, and bear a similarity to the modern tenets of ethical veganism:
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