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Utilitarianism and Author(s): Source: Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Summer, 1980), pp. 325-337 Published by: Blackwell Publishing Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2265002 . Accessed: 26/02/2011 04:54

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http://www.jstor.org PETER SINGER and Vegetarianism

The better sort here pretend to the utmost compassion for animals of every kind: to hear them speak, a strangerwould be apt to imagine they could hardly hurt the gnat that stung them. They seem so tender,and so full of pity,that one would take them for the harmless friends of the whole creation, the protectorsof the meanest insect or rep- tile that was privilegedwith existence. And yet (would you believe it?) I have seen the very men who have thus boasted of their tenderness, at the same time devour the flesh of six differentanimals tossed up in a fricassee. Strange contrarietyof conduct! they pity and they eat the objects of their compassion! Oliver Goldsmith, Citizen of the World

I am a utilitarian.I am also a vegetarian.I am a vegetarianbecause I am a utilitarian.I believethat applyingthe principleof utilityto our presentsituation-especially the methodsnow used to rear animals for food and the varietyof food available to us-leads to the conclusion thatwe oughtto be vegetarian. Withthis disagrees.'Utilitarianism does not,he claims, provideadequate groundsfor the obligationto be a vegetarian.This is the negative side of his essay, and it is a point with which several othercritics of Animal Liberationagree.2The positive side of Regan's

i. "Utilitarianism,Vegetarianism and Animal ," above, pp. 305-324. 2. See Michael Martin, "A Moral Critique of Vegetarianism," Reason Papers, no. 3 (Fall 1976): 13-43; Philip Devine, "The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism, Philosophy 53, no. 206 (October 1978): 481-505; Leslie Pickering Francis and Richard Norman, "Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others," Philosophy 53, no. 206 (October 1978): 507-527; Aubrey Townsend, "Radical Vegetarians," Australasian Journal of Philosophy57, no. i (March 1979): 85-93; Peter Wenz, "Act-Utilitarianismand ," The Personalist 6o, no. 4 (October

? ig80 by Princeton UniversityPress Philosophy & Public Affairs9, no. 4 0048-3915/80/040325-13$oo.65/ I 326 Philosophy& Public Affairs

argument,with which most of thesecritics would not agree,is thatan ethical theorybased on rightsdoes provideadequate groundsfor the obligationto be a vegetarian.I shall defendmyself against the charge thatutilitarianism does not supportvegetarianism, but I shall not con- sider the alternativeargument involving rights. Regan admits that he has presentedonly a sketchof an argumentwhich he hopes to be able to develop more fullyon anotheroccasion. To criticizehis argument would thereforebe premature.I shall, however,begin with a word about methodologyin ethicswhich may sufficeto explain my attitude to Regan's suggestionthat to defendvegetarianism I should drop utili- tarianismand take up a rights-basedtheory.

I Some philosophersthink that the aim of moral theoryis to systematize our common moral intuitions.As scientifictheories must match the observeddata, theysay, so mustethical theories match the data of our settledmoral convictions.I have elsewhereargued against the inbuilt conservatismof this approach to ,an approach which is liable to take relics of our cultural historyas the touchstoneof .3 These argumentsneed not be rehearsedhere, forRegan does not de- fendthe view thata sound ethical theorymust match our moral intui- tions.What does seem to be implicitin Regan's article,however, is the view thata sound moral theorymust lead to thebelief that it is wrong to kill and eat animals. Certainlyhe recommendsabandoning utilitar- ianism in favorof a rights-basedtheory without having made a single point against utilitarianism,except forhis argumentthat utilitarian- ism does not support vegetarianism.Unless the animal liberation movementhas made much fasterprogress than I dare to hope, thisis a curious inversionof the strategyof testingethical theoriesby the degreeto whichthey match our commonmoral convictions.Nor is the

1979): 423-428; and R. G. Frey in a forthcomingbook, The . 3. "Sidgwick and ReflectiveEquilibrium," The Monist 58, no. 3 (July 1974), especially pp. 515-517. 327 Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism

invertedstrategy any soundera methodof testingethical theories than the original. Perhaps this is unfairto Regan. Perhaps his suggestionthat utili- tarianismshould be abandoned because it does not lead to vegetarian- ism is not directed to utilitariansat large, but to me personally. Perhaps he thinksthat in my case, at least, the commitmentto vege- tarianismis so strongthat I will be preparedto abandon any ethical theorywhich is unable to producethe judgmentthat it is wrongto eat animals. If so, thisis a misjudgmentwhich comes, I would guess,from neglectingthe importanceof correctmethodology in ethics. It would be just as wrongfor me to reject utilitarianismbecause I cannot de- duce vegetarianismfrom it as it was forWhewell to reject utilitarian- ism because it mightmake it our dutyto sacrificethe of men in orderto increase the of pigs or geese.4Our moral convic- tionsare not reliabledata fortesting ethical theories.We should work fromsound theoriesto practicaljudgments, not fromour judgments to our theories. Regan's account of my publishedviews on the basis of my vegetar- ianism is accurate. My verysparing talk of "rights"in Animal Libera- tionoccurs mostly in thecontext of ad hominemarguments. Elsewhere when I talk of rights,I do it, as I have said, as a concessionto popular rhetoric.(Animal Liberationwas not writtenprimarily for philoso- phers.) Vegetarianismis, forme, a means to an end ratherthan an end in itself.Whether we oughtto be vegetariansdepends on a lot of facts about the situationin whichwe findourselves. Some writersfind this strange.They thinkof vegetariansas moral absolutists,who will stick to theirbelief in the immoralityof eating meat no matter what. Thus writes: ". . . one curious feature of the Peter Singer sort of argument . . . is that your Peter Singer vegetarianshould be perfectlyhappy to eat the unfortunate lamb thathas just been hit by a car."5Why is this curious? It is only 4. See the quotation from Whewell's Lectures in 's essay "Whewell on Moral Philosophy."The relevant section is reprintedin Tom Regan and Peter Singer, eds., and Human Obligations (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall,I976), pp. I3I-I32. 5. "Eating Meat and Eating People," Philosophy,53, no. 206 (October i_78): 47I-472. 328 Philosophy& Public Affairs

curiouson the assumptionthat vegetarians must think it always wrong to eat meat. No doubt some vegetariansare moral absolutists,just as there are absolute pacifists,absolute antiabortionistsand absolutist truth-tellerswho wouldnever tell a lie. I rejectall theseforms of . Regan suggeststhat by basing the case for vegetarianismon ani- mals' rightsI "could dispense with the need to investigatesystemati- cally the probable consequences of changing our eating habits" (p. 3I8). This suggestionstrikes me as quite wrong-headed,rather like tellingthe Presidentthat by basing his case on the moral that it is always legitimateto resistaggression, he can dispense with the need to investigatesystematically the probableconsequences of a nuclear responseto Sovietmilitary initiatives. In contrastto Regan, I thinkwe should always tryto findout as much as possible about the probableconsequences of our actions. Withoutthis information,our decisions about what we oughtto do should be subject to revisionin the lightof more completeinformation.

II To turnfrom methodology to the substantiveissue: what are the im- plicationsof utilitarianismfor our treatmentof animals? When we apply utilitarianismto the issue of how we should treat animals, one vital pointstands out immediately.Utilitarianism, in its classical form,aims at minimizingpain and maximizingpleasure. Many nonhumananimals can experiencepain and pleasure. (Perhaps some simplerforms of animal lifecannot, but I shall leave thisqualifi- cation aside.) Thereforethey are morally significantentities. They have moral standing.In thisrespect they are like humans and unlike rocks. This is a simplepoint, so obviousthat we may forgetits importance. Regan's difficultyin interpretingmy "principleof equality"may stem fromhis underestimateof the importanceof this point,and his con- sequent vain search for some additionalutilitarian principle of equal- ity which I mighthold. The only principleof equality I hold is the principlethat the interestsof everybeing affectedby an action are to 329 Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism

be takeninto account and giventhe same weightas thelike interests of any otherbeing-what Regan calls the "equalityof interests"principle. As Regan grants,utilitarianism presupposes this principle.The prin- ciple of equalityof interestsmerely makes it explicitthat, because the principleof utilityis the sole basis of morality,no otherprinciple will limit the applicationof the principleof ,or affectthe way in whichit operates.I do not hold any "equalityof treatment"principle, except insofaras givingweight to the interestsof a being is a form of "treatment."As I said in Animal Liberation:"The basic principleof equalitydoes not requireequal or identicaltreatment; it requiresequal consideration."6 The importanceof thefact thatthe principle of utilitygives animals moral standing,and gives theirinterests equal weightwith the like interestsof humans,lies in the consequences of denyinganimals this equal moral standing-and historically,most moral philosophershave eitherdenied animals moral standingaltogether, or discountedtheir interestsbecause theyare not human. Thus Aristotlethought that all animals exist for the sake of man. Aquinas took over this attitude, adding thatwe do not even owe charityto animals. Kant said that we have no directduties to animals. Whewell,as we have seen, thought it so obvious that animals do not count equally that he regardedthe contraryimplication as a damning objection to utilitarianism.More recentlyJohn Rawls has deniedanimals a place in his theoryof , arguing that we owe justice only to those who have the concept of justice (except thatwe owe it to infanthumans).7 So utilitarianscan do much to revise moral theoryin favorof ani- mals, merelyby defendingthe claim that no being should have its interestsdisregarded or discountedmerely because it is not human. Moreoverit needs to be emphasized that this reallyis the utilitarian position,for thereis a widespreadmisconception that utilitarianism values everythingby its utilityfor human beings. Thus opponentsof whalingcriticize the "utilitarian"attitudes of whalers,who see whales

6. Animal Liberation (New York: A New York Review Book, I975), p. 2, the italics in original. Furtherpage referencesin the text are to this edition. 7. For referencessee Animal Liberation, chap. 5. Rawls' discussion is in Sec- tion 77 of A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, I97I) ). 330 Philosophy& Public Affairs

as so much oil, meat, and ambergris.This may seem no more than a popular, non-philosophicaluse of the term "utilitarian";but as dis- tinguisheda philosopheras StuartHampshire has similarlymischar- acterized utilitarianismas a theorywhich "places men at the very centerof the universe,with their states of feelingas the source of all in the world."8 So utilitarianism,correctly understood, stands in sharp contrastto otherwidely held ethicaltheories in respectof the standingit gives to animals. We must now ask if this differencebetween utilitarianism and other ethical theoriesleads to an equally sharp contrastin the practiceswhich can be justifiedon these theories.

III It wouldbe a remarkablecoincidence if our currentpractices, many of which are based on givinglittle or no considerationto the interestsof nonhumans,should happen to maximizepleasure and minimizepain, even when the and of animals are fullytaken into account.9Nor is this what Regan or my other criticsclaim. Almost unanimously,they acknowledge that controlsover the use of animals in experimentsshould be tightened,and thatintensive farming meth- ods inflictunnecessary distress on chickens, pigs, and veal calves. Thus the disagreementbetween us is not over whethercurrent prac- tices are, judged by utilitarianstandards, . We are agreed that theyare not. The questionis whetherthe utilitariancondemnation of

8. "Moralityand Pessimism" in S. Hampshire, ed., Public and Private Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, I978), p. 2. Hampshire's persistence in this mischaracterizationis odd, for in an exchange of letterspublished in The New York Review of Books, 20 September I973, he appeared to concede that utilitarianism takes all sentient beings into account and hence cannot be de- scribed as anthropocentric. 9. In Animal Liberation I give several examples of the attitudes to animals implicit-and often explicit-in factoryfarming; here is another example from a recent New South Wales Department of Agriculturebrochure on the housing of pigs: "A piggery must be imagined as being similar to a factorywith raw (breeding stock and feed) going in one end and the finishedarticle (pork and bacon) coming out the other." 331 Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism

these practicescarries with it the implicationthat we should switch to a vegetariandiet. There are threeways in which a utilitariancondemnation of the treatmentof farmanimals mightfall shortof entailingthat we should switchto a vegetariandiet. Firstly,if the objectionis not to all raising and killingof animals forfood, but onlyto particularmethods of rais- ing and killingthem, it would seem thatwe can avoid the necessityof vegetarianismby restricting,our dietto the fleshof animals not reared or killed by methodsinvolving . Secondly, one mightargue that,bad as factoryfarming is, the consequences of abolishingit are not clearlybetter than the consequencesof continuingit. And thirdly, those who admit thatit would be betterif factoryfarming were abol- ished may deny that thereis any utilitarianconnection between this conclusionand the obligationto avoid consumingthe productsof fac- toryfarms. The firstof these three attemptsto deny the moral necessityfor vegetarianism-theargument that it is not wrongto eat animals that have had a pleasant life and then been killed humanely-raisespro- foundquestions about thevalue of life and thelegitimacy of regarding a new generationof happyanimals as replacementsfor those that were eaten. I have recentlydiscussed theseissues in otherplaces, so I shall onlytouch upon themnow. While I accept that in particularcircum- stances theremay be no directutilitarian objection to the use of some kindsof animals forfood, these are not the circumstancesof those of us who mustrely on theusual commercialsources of meat.'0Moreover, even in the absence of directutilitarian objections to who have lived happilyand died painlessly,there is an indirectobjec- tion.In AnimalLiberation (p. I72) I put it thisway: If we are preparedto take the life of anotherbeing merelyin order to satisfyour taste for a particulartype of food,then that being is no more than a means to our end.

io. See "Killing Humans and Killing Animals," Inquiry, vol. 22 (Summer 1979): 145-I56; "Animals and the Value of Life," in Tom Regan, ed., Matters of Life and Death (New York: Random House, I980): 2I8-259; and (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, I979), chap. 5. 332 Philosophy& Public Affairs

This sentence led Leslie PickeringFrancis and Richard Norman to claim thatwhen the goinggets rough I fall back on a Kantian kindof objectionto the use of animals as means.11Had theyquoted the next two sentencesas well, theymight have seen thatmy pointis stillutili- tarian,though it takes a longerperspective: In timewe will come to regardpigs, cattle,and chickensas things for us to use, no matterhow strongour compassion may be; and when we findthat to continueto obtain supplies of the bodies of these animals at a pricewe are able to pay it is necessaryto change theirliving conditionsa little,we will be unlikelyto regard these changes too critically.The factoryfarm is nothingmore than the applicationof technologyto the idea that animals are means to our ends. This is a "slipperyslope" argument: no matterhow humane our originalintentions, as long as we continueto eat animals thereis a dangerof our slidingback into themethods of treatinganimals in use today.I confessthat in othercontexts-the debate overeuthanasia, for instance-I have been criticalof slipperyslope arguments.It is a matter of judgmentin each case whetherthe risk of slidingis real or imagi- nary.I may have been insufficientlycritical of myown use of the argu- ment,but I have not become a Kantian.

IV

The second way of arguingthat utilitarianismdoes not lead to vege- tarianismis the one pressedby Regan. It is, he says, an enormously complicatedquestion whether the undoubted suffering caused animals by the presentsystem is enoughto outweighboth the pleasurespeople get from eating animals and the disruptionthat abolishingfactory farmingwould cause to thelives of thosedependent on raisinganimals forfood. Perhapsit is, Regan says, but I have not even begun to show this. It is true that the questionis complicatedand I have not done all the calculationsinvolved. But I have begun.The firststep was to show

iI. "Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others,"p. 5I7. 333 Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism

how much sufferingmodern farming methods inflict on animals. This was the object of the long thirdchapter of Animal Liberation,my ac- count of what Regan calls-and agrees really are-the "gruesomede- tails"of factoryfarming. The second step was to show thata vegetariandiet does not involve greatsacrifices, not in our health,nor in our capacityto feed the grow- ing worldpopulation, nor in the pleasures of the palate. This was the object of the fourthchapter, and of the appendix on cooking.On the matterof the pleasuresof taste,Regan takes me to task fordescribing these pleasures as "trivial."I still thinkthat the pleasures of taste- whichare not the same as thepleasures of eating-are relativelytrivial by comparisonwith the interestsof, say, a pig in being able to move freely,mingle with other animals, and generallyavoid the boredom and confinementof factoryfarm life. But what I should emphasize is not the unimportanceof the pleasures of taste,so much as the unim- portanceof the differencein pleasurebetween eating animal fleshand eating vegetarianfood. If animal fleshwere uniformlydelicious and vegetarianfood uniformlyawful, the case for vegetarianismwould admittedlybe weaker. Philip Devine was rightto guess that "'perhaps therecipes and so on whichSinger appends to his book are not merely helps to virtuousand happy living,but essential parts of his argu- ment."-2 The thirdstep in the calculations would be to considerthe loss of utilityto people involvedin raising animals likelyto resultfrom our all becomingvegetarians. This I have not done, largelybecause I as- sumed thatany such loss of utilitywould in thelong run be outweighed by the benefitsto both animals and humans. I say "animals and hu- mans" because while Regan is rightto say that any utilitarianshould include thisloss of utilityin the calculations,if we are to look at the questionobjectively we shouldinclude incidentalgains as well as inci- dental losses. In Animal LiberationI made the point-which many otherswith no special concernfor animals have also made-that a re- ductionin the amountof animal fleshconsumed by Westernerswould release enormousamounts of , and otherhigh-quality foods,now being fed to animals, forhungry and malnourished

I2. "The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism,"p. 49I. 334 Philosophy& Public Affairs

humans who cannot affordto pay the prices paid for these crops by factoryfarmers. The gain in utilityfrom this alone could far outweigh the losses to animal producers.Next we add in the possible reduction a vegetariandiet would bringin human sufferingfrom heart disease and cancer of the stomachand colon. Finally,there would be environ- mental benefitsfrom ending factoryfarming, which is energyinten- sive and leads to problemsin disposingof the huge quantitiesof ani- mal wastes whichit concentrateson one site.13 Suppose we leave thesebenefits aside, and focusonly on thebenefits to animals and losses to animal producers.It still seems that if the choice is betweenperpetuating or abolishingfactory farming, the prin- ciple of utilitytells us to abolish factoryfarming. While this will cer- tainlyhave costsfor many people, the costs will occur once only.There is no reason to believethat working on a factoryfarm is a particularly enjoyable way of making a living; visitingone stronglysuggests the reverse.It is the disruptionof a settledlife and occupationthat causes the loss of utility.Now eitherfactory farming will eventuallycease- in which case the costs of the transitionare merelypostponed-or animals will go on sufferingin factoryfarms forever.Compare the indefiniteprolongation of animal sufferingwith the once-onlycosts of a transition,and I thinkthat as long as we givethe interests of animals equal considerationwith similar human interests,the answeris clear. It mightbe said thatthe best solutionwould be neitherthe perpetu- ation of factoryfarming nor its sudden abolition,but a gradual phas- ing out whichwould allow theindustry to be wounddown in an orderly fashion. But this is likelyto happen in any case. I have no illusions about seeingvegetarianism sweep Americaovernight. If thevegetarian movementsucceeds at all, it will succeed graduallyenough for factory farmingto be phased out overmany years. On utilitariangrounds, this is what we want.

V

The utilitarianvegetarian is on strongground in arguingthat factory farmingand the other crueltiesinvolved in large-scale commercial 13. For furtherdetails on these issues, see James Mason and Peter Singer, Animal Factories (New York: Crown, I980). 335 Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism

animal productionshould end. The final problemis to establish the link betweenthis goal and the obligationto become a vegetarian.In Animal LiberationI triedtwo differentways of forgingthis link. One was along the lines of GeorgeBernard Shaw's remarkthat he will be followedto his graveby a herdof animals of assortedspecies, all grate- ful for having been spared fromslaughter by his vegetariandiet. In defenseof the seriousidea behindthis light-heartedimage, I asserted that because becominga vegetarianreduces the overall demand for animal flesh,an individualcould assume that it loweredthe profita- bilityof the animal industry,and thusreduced the numberof animals factoryfarmers would breed. Trenchant criticismof this claim by Michael Martin,Philip Devine, R. G. Frey and Peter Wenz, has con- vinced me that I misstatedthis argument.The loss of one consumer fromthe millionswho buy animal fleshmakes so small a difference thatit is impossibleto say thatit affectsthe number of animals reared and killed.As Wenz puts it: "There are thresholdsbeneath which an alterationin demand has absolutelyno effecton price,profit and pro- duction." Fair enough;but thisstill implies that a large numberof consumers rejecting animal flesh must make a difference.Perhaps for every I0,000 vegetariansthere is one fewer20,000 bird chicken unit than therewould otherwisebe. Perhapsnot: thisis merelyan example and I have no idea what the truefigure would be; but theremust be some point at which the numberof vegetariansmakes a differenceto the size of the poultryindustry. There mustbe a series of thresholds,hid- den by the marketsystem of distribution,which determine how many factoryfarms will be in existence.In thiscase one moreperson becom- ing a vegetarianwill make no differenceat all, unless that individual, added to the otherswho are alreadyvegetarians, reduces demand be- low the thresholdlevel at whicha new factoryfarm would have started up (or an existingone would have remainedin production,if the in- dustryis declining). Lookingat one's own decisionto be a vegetarian,it may seem frus- tratingthat one cannotbe sure thatone has saved even a singleanimal froma miserablelife on a factoryfarm; but from a utilitarianper- spectiveit reallymakes no differencewhether each vegetarianis per- sonallyresponsible for saving ten chickens a year fromthis fate, or 336 Philosophy& Public Affairs

one vegetarianin io,ooo makes the differencethat will save IOO,OOO birds. Utilitarianismjudges actions by theirlikely consequences, and so it ranks the certaintyof saving ten chickensequally with the i in io,ooo chance of saving ioo,ooo. As long as I have no idea whether or not my own decisionto go vegetarianis the decision that takes the demand forchickens below the threshold,the strengthof this reason forbeing a vegetarianis unaffected.'1 The second way I triedto link vegetarianismand the goal of ending the exploitationof animals was by describingbecoming a vegetarian as "the most practical and effectivestep" we can take towardending the exploitationof animals (Animal Liberation,p. I73). This claim too, may have been incautiouslyworded. (Had I been writingpri- marilyfor philosophers, I would have been more careful.) Some peo- ple, skilledat publicityand lobbying,may do more to end the exploi- tation of animals by political campaigning than by ceasing to eat animal flesh.Merely becoming a vegetarian,without doing anything else to change our treatmentof animals, may have no effectat all. But I do not advocate this passive formof vegetarianism. I advocate vegetarianismas somethingwhich "underpins,makes consistent,and gives meaning to all our otheractivities on behalf of animals" (Animal Liberation,p. I71). I remain convinced that for those concerned to change the situationof animals in our society, vegetarianismis of real practicalimportance. It providesan irrefutable answerto theoft-repeated claim thatwe need factoryfarms to feedour growingpopulation. It allows the animal welfarecampaigner to defeat ad hominemattacks, for instance: 'How can you object to killingseals when you eat pigs and calves?' By eliminatingone's personalinvolve- mentin the productionof animals forfood, it makes it easier to take a detachedview of the animal industry,and to avoid compromisingthe interestsof the animals with one's own interestas a consumer of animals. Calling on the publicnot to buy the produceof factoryfarms can be an importantpart of a campaign against factoryfarming. It

I4. Bart Gruzalski comes to a similar conclusion though by a slightlydifferent route in his unpublished paper, "The Case Against Raising and Killing Animals for Food." I am grateful to Gruzalski for having given me a copy of this paper and for having discussed the issue with me. 337 Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism

holds out a threateningprospect to farmers-onewhich is beginning to be noticedin farmingmagazines-and it enables those who support the campaignagainst factory farming to make a personalcommitment whichgoes beyondsigning petitions and writingletters to theirelected representatives.One cannot convincinglyask othersto do this if one does not do it oneself. (Unless one eats animal fleshin secret-which hardlyseems worththe hypocrisyand riskof discoveryinvolved.) Finally,becoming a vegetarianis a way of attestingto thedepth and sincerityof one's beliefin the wrongnessof what we are doing to ani- mals. Perhaps in a societyof sophisticatedphilosophers there would be no need to attestto one's sincerityin thisway, because sophisticated philosopherswould understandthat one can sincerelyoppose the ex- ploitationof animals in factoryfarms while continuingto buy and en- joy the productof thesevery farms. But to mostof the membersof our societythis would mean, as it seemed to OliverGoldsmith's fictitious Chinese traveler,a "strangecontrariety of conduct."