Ben Franklin Critique
Ben Franklin, when deciding to end his vegetarian eating habits, was about as rational as a two-year-old. ... Ben Franklin. ... In the book, Franklin chooses to end his vegetarian habits, not because of rational thinking, but due to human desire and cravings. Franklin first explains to the reader how he was attracted to the vegetarian diet. He discusses an author named Tryon, who proposed the idea of a vegetarian diet, and how he (Franklin) was “determined to go into it” (Franklin 18). At this time, Franklin was sixteen years old. He admits his aversion to flesh “occasioned an inconvenience and I was frequently chided for my singularity” (Franklin 18). Franklin, believing strongly he was doing the rational thing, even moved out on his own so he could continue his flesh free diet. Until the age of seventeen, Franklin ate “nothing that had had life” and believed eating a fish was an “unprovoked murder” (Franklin 46). However, on a fisherman’s boat, Franklin would soon give into his human cravings and dine on the dead flesh of a cod fish. Franklin, on the day of his unprovoked murder of a cod fish, tries to describe to his reader why he is correct in eating the fish. He explains how he was “formerly a great lover of fish” and how the cooking flesh of the fish “smelled admirably well” (Franklin 46). As his human cravings kick in, Franklin desperately searches for a justifiable reason to eat the fish he desires.