 First, at age seven Findlay became a firm vegetarian, not because meat animals can suffer, but because (he writes) meat animals are conscious, which gives them moral status. (That Findlay was a vegetarian will come as a surprise to some of his former graduate students, who may have observed Findlay carving roast beef at his supper parties, but never noticed he took no plate of his own.) Perhaps Findlay’s early attitude towards non-human animals provoked his later separation of mentality from linguistic  competence.[3] 