Unlike other ethical arguments for veganism, the argument advanced is not predicated on the wrongness of speciesism, nor does it depend on your believing that all animals are equal or that all animals have a right to life, nor is it predicated on some highly contentious metaethical theory which you reject. Rather, it is predicated on your beliefs. Simply put, the argument shows that even those of you who are steadfastly committed to valuing humans over nonhumans are nevertheless committed to (...) the immorality of eating meat and other animal products, given your other beliefs. (shrink)

Several authors have argued that act–utilitarianism cannot provide an adequate critique of buying meat because a single meat purchase will not actually cause more farm animals to be raised or slaughtered. Thus, regardless of whether or not the production of meat is inhumane to animals, someone who buys meat is doing nothing wrong. This argument fails to show that meat purchases are morally permissible, however, because it assumes that act–utilitarians would use actual utility in their decision to buy or not (...) to buy meat. I show that act–utilitarians cannot use actual utility as a decision procedure and must instead use expected utility to prescribe or proscribe actions. I then demonstrate how expected utility can be applied to cases of contributory causation, where many people seem morally responsible for causing something to happen. Buying meat is one case of contributory causation where the probability of any single individual's affecting meat production is slight, but the expected disutility of affecting that production is substantial. Thus, in its expected utility form, act–utilitarianism defeats the ‘causal inefficacy’ defence of buying meat [1]. (shrink)