How to eat: vegetarianism, religion and law
Abstract
The approach of Critical Legal Studies that law is a cultural artefact that can be criticised
is taken as point of departure in this paper. This insight is applied to food as a very
important cultural artefact that permeates virtually every aspect of our personal and social lives. The paper then examines three types of restrictive diets, namely Kosher food production, halal food rules and vegetarianism. From this study it concludes that all
three perform a vital social function of providing adherents with a unifying and identifying set of rules to foster social coherence. But it also provides adherents with a
strong moral foundation that serves to justify a sense of moral superiority. Most
importantly, all three these diets rest on a modernist view of morality in which absolute,
unquestioning and universal truths are possible. It therefore serves to provide certainty in the postmodern condition of uncertainty and relativism. For that reason this study
concludes that vegetarianism is the new religion – it provides people who no longer
believe in traditional religions with a new certainty.