A Few Notes on Vegetarianism in the Platonic Tradition after Reading Plutarch

6 April 2024

A Few Notes on Vegetarianism in the Platonic Tradition after Reading Plutarch

1.  I just read The Eating of Flesh I and II in the Loeb Edition, Volume XII, of Plutarch’s Moralia.  I had wanted to read it for a long time because I was interested in what a Middle Platonist might say about vegetarianism and how it compared to Porphyry’s long work On Abstaining from Killing Animals and his Letter to Anebo.  Plutarch lived from 46 to 119 C.E.  Porphyry lived from 234 to 305 C.E.  So they are about two centuries apart. 

2.  The Plutarch essays are in a highly fragmentary condition, which is unfortunate.  It is not possible to ascertain how long they originally were and it is likely that some significant observations are missing.  (I’m not sure if there is recent scholarship on if some missing parts of the essay might have been quoted in other classical sources.)  But it does indicate that a Platonist from Plutarch’s time was also a passionate advocate for philosophical vegetarianism.  (Note: It’s not clear if vegetarians in the Classical period might have been vegans; there is some evidence that Plotinus might have had that commitment.  But it does not seem that a differentiation between the two was operative at that time.  Because of this I will use the term ‘vegetarian’ in talking about the classical tradition.)

3.  In some ways Plutarch’s writing resembles Porphyry.  For example, both of them present a mythic history of why people started eating meat, alleging that it must have been due to some great disaster.  Both of them are committed to the idea that vegetarianism was the original diet of human beings.

4.  In Porphyry there is an emphasis on the idea that abandoning killing animals for food or sacrifice is necessary for a philosopher.  But Porphyry exempts ordinary non-philosophers from such commitments.  It appears that Plutarch does not make such a distinction.  Plutarch writes, “Note that the eating of flesh is not only physically against nature, but it also makes us spiritually coarse and gross by reason of satiety and surfeit.  For wine and indulgence in meat make the body strong and vigorous, but the soul weak.” (page 555) Platonism cultivates the soul, and places that above cultivating the body; hence Plutarch reaches this conclusion.

Modern vegetarians would not agree that their diet makes the body weak.  I’m not sure, but this idea might be due to the specific vegetarian diet that was eaten in the Classical Period.  I have not run into the specifics of such a diet, meaning I have not run into what classical vegetarians recommended for eating as distinct from what they excluded.  On the other hand, this idea might be just a common prejudice.

4.1  A friend suggested that what Plutarch is getting at is that eating meat makes the body 'unruly' and what we might call 'out of control.'  Eating meat is a kind of drug addiction from this perspective.  In addition, there is evidence in the Dialogues that a vegan diet was known.  That would explain why Plotinus had what we would call 'vegan' commitments.  

5.  Plutarch was very interested in history and refers to Pythagoras, Empedocles, Heraclitus, as well as Xenocrates and others. 

6.  Plutarch argues that vegetarianism has moral implications that, if widely adopted, will, for example, increase social responsibility.  “But apart from these considerations (of eating meat being ‘against nature’), do you not find here a wonderful training in social responsibility?  Who could wrong a human being when he found himself so gently and humanely disposed toward non-human creatures?” (page 559) 

7.  Plutarch imputes to Empedocles the idea “. . . though he (Empedocles) does not say so directly, that human souls are imprisoned in mortal bodies as a punishment for murder, the eating of animal flesh, and cannibalism.  This doctrine, however, seems to be even older, for the stories told about the sufferings and dismemberment of Dionysus and the outrageous assaults of the Titans upon him, and their punishment and blasting by thunderbolt after they had tasted his blood – all this is a myth which in its inner meaning has to do with rebirth.” (page 559)  In this way Plutarch draws on older sources and myths to support his own vegetarian views.

8.  Plutarch was, I understand, a Priest at Delphi for part of his life.  I would liked to have read about Plutarch’s practice of vegetarianism in that context.  I know very little about practices at Delphi but I am aware that animal sacrifice was standard for Classical Pagan religion.  But perhaps Delphi was different from the norm?  Or perhaps those in charge of Delphi granted Plutarch an exemption?  This is not clear.

9.  In the second part, the surviving fragments emphasize purification.  “. . . nor is it easy to extract the hook of flesh-eating, entangled as it is and embedded in the love of pleasure . . . it would be well for us to excise our own gluttony and lust to kill and become pure for the remainder of our lives . . . “ (page 563)

10.  Plutarch has a deep disgust for the particulars of animal slaughter in a way that reminds me of contemporary critics of ‘factory farming.’ 

11.  There is a strong continuity in the teaching of vegetarianism in both the Platonic and Pre-Platonic traditions, particularly those traditions that Plato refers to as predecessors of what would become Platonism.  I mean, of course, Pythagoreanism and Orphism.  It’s not that every single philosopher was a vegetarian; rather it is that vegetarianism was of central concern to philosophers in general and Platonism in particular.  There were multiple reasons for this, but the primary reason appears to have been that philosophical practice is dulled, and the soul is harmed, by eating meat and sacrificing animals. 

I believe this view is as significant today for Platonism as it was for the tradition during the Classical Period.  It would be useful to bring all the sources that remain from these traditions together as a kind of reference for the student of philosophy so that the student won’t have to go through multiple volumes to find out the particulars of the discussion.

12.  There is one more essay on Vegetarianism by Plutarch, in Volume 15, that I haven’t read yet.  When I have an opportunity to do so, I will write about it here.