As a small child, I was once sent to an (obese) NHS dietician nurse, due to being overweight. She didn’t like hearing about my diet of ice-cream pies and sugar on toast when I told her about it, and wanted to know why I didn’t eat any meat. The real answer was because I didn’t like the taste. But this wasn’t good enough for her. So, I thought of a much better excuse: I had heard animal rights people on the TV complaining about meat-eating being an all-time human evil, so I just lied and said I thought eating animals was cruel and pulled a fake little weepy sad-face. Even though I was only about six, and as such wholly unqualified to make genuinely reasoned moral judgements about anything much at all, the nurse immediately shut up and said something like, “That’s your ethical privilege, and I must not judge you”, and I was free to return to eating sweets and crisps all day long, as it appeared she did.
