Since its original publication in 1975, this groundbreaking work has awakened millions of people to the existence of "speciesism"—our systematic disregard of nonhuman animals—inspiring a worldwide movement to transform our attitudes to animals and eliminate the cruelty we inflict on them. In Animal Liberation, author Peter Singer exposes the chilling realities of today’s "factory farms" and product-testing procedures—destroying the spurious justifications behind them, and offering alternatives to what has become a profound environmental and social as well as moral issue. An (...) important and persuasive appeal to conscience, fairness, decency, and justice, it is essential reading for the supporter and the skeptic alike. (shrink)

Animal rights and moral theories -- Arguing for one's species -- Utilitarianism and animals : Peter Singer's case for animal liberation -- Tom Regan : animal rights as natural rights -- Virtue ethics and animals -- Contractarianism and animal rights -- Animal minds.

Drawing on philosophy, law and political science, and on a wealth of practical experience delivering emergency medical services in conflict-ridden settings, Lepora and Goodin untangle the complexities surrounding compromise and complicity.

This title examines the fields of value theory, normative and applied ethics on the issue of killing animals. It addresses a number of questions: Can painless killing harm or benefit an animal and, if so, why and under what conditions? Can coming into existence harm or benefit an animal? Is killing animals morally acceptable? Should animals have the legal right to life? In addressing these questions, animal rights and animal welfare positions are articulated and debated by some of the foremost (...) thinkers on these issues, with a distinction made between rights-based and utilitarian approaches. (shrink)

Grafting: do we ever do anything other than that? And are we ever free from vegetal influences when we engage in its operations? For the philosopher Michael Marder, our reflections on vegetal life have a fundamental importance in how we can reflect on our own conceptions of ethics, politics, and philosophy in general. Taking as his starting point the simple vegetal conception of grafting, Marder guides the reader through his concise and numerous reflections on what could be described as a (...) vegetal philosophy. Grafts are transplants either of a shoot inserted into the trunk of another tree or, surgically, of skin (among other living tissues). They are delicate operations intended to preserve, improve, and modify both the grafted materials and the body that receives them. To graft is to create unlikely encounters, hybrid mixes, and novel surfaces. Moving across disciplinary lines, Grafts combines the lessons of plant science with the history of philosophy, semiotics, literary compositions, and political theory. Co-authoring some of the texts with other philosophers, plant scientists and artists, Marder allows their insights to be grafted onto his own, and vice versa. Weighing in on contemporary debates such as the ethics of biotechnology, dietary practices or political organization, Marder inserts an unmistakable vegetal perspective into topics of discussion where it normally wouldnt be found. Transferring the living tissue of his own texts into another context, he helps them live better, more fully, than otherwise. (shrink)

Despite its potential for radically reducing the harm inflicted on nonhuman animals in the pursuit of food, there are a number of objections grounded in animal ethics to the development of in vitro meat. In this paper, I defend the possibility against three such concerns. I suggest that worries about reinforcing ideas of flesh as food and worries about the use of nonhuman animals in the production of in vitro meat can be overcome through appropriate safeguards and a fuller understanding (...) of the interests that nonhuman animals actually possess. Worries about the technology reifying speciesist hierarchies of value are more troublesome, however. In response to this final challenge, I suggest that we should be open not just to the production of in vitro nonhuman flesh, but also in vitro human flesh. This leads to a consideration of the ethics of cannibalism. The paper ultimately defends the position that cannibalism simpliciter is not morally problematic, though a great many practices typically associated with it are. The consumption of in vitro human flesh, however, is able to avoid these problematic practices, and so should be considered permissible. I conclude that animal ethicists and vegans should be willing to cautiously embrace the production of in vitro flesh. (shrink)

This paper is a response to a certain sort of argument defending the rights of animals. Part I is a brief explanation of the background and of the sort of argument I want to reject; Part II is an attempt to characterize those arguments: they contain fundamental confusions about moral relations between people and people and between people and animals. And Part III is an indication of what I think can still be said on—as it were–the animals' side.

Contrary to the views proposed by modern animal rights scholars, this essay reconstructs the Confucian argument for the moral defensibility of the Confucian ritual use of animals by providing an expository analysis of classical Confucian literature. The argument is developed by focusing on the issue of the sacrificial use of animals in the Confucian tradition. While animals are treated according to certain regulations and restrictions, they are not spared from being offered as sacrifices. An essential component of Confucian virtues, reverence, (...) requires showing deep respect to Heaven, gods, spirits, and humans but not to animals. If Confucians change the rituals in ways that spare animals, they would fail to show the depth of reverence to gods, spirits, and humans that they should. (shrink)

This article considers whether a morally relevant distinction can be drawn between wild and domesticated animals. The term “wildness” can be used in several different ways, only one of which (constitutive wildness, meaning an animal that has not been domesticated by being bred in particular ways) is generally paired and contrasted with“domesticated.” Domesticated animals are normally deliberately bred and confined. One of the article's arguments concerns human initiatives that establish relations with animals and thereby change what is owed to these (...) animals. The main relations of interest in ethics are the vulnerability and dependence in animals that are created when humans establish certain relations with them on farms, in zoos, in laboratories, and the like. Domestication is a pervasive way in which humans make animals vulnerable, and thereby duties of animal care and protection arise in a persistent way. (shrink)

This article examines basic interests that animals have in liberty—the absence of external constraints on movement. It takes liberty to be a benefit for sentient animals that permits them to pursue what they want and need. Obviously farms, zoos, pets in homes, animals for sale in stores, circuses, and laboratories all involve forms of confinement that restrict liberty. The discussion aims to know the conditions, if there are any, under which such liberty-limitation is morally justified. It first lays out the (...) harms caused by confinement. It then examines and evaluates five possible standards for the justification of confinement: a basic-needs requirement; a comparable-life requirement; a no-unnecessary-harm standard; a worthwhile-life criterion; and an appeal to respect. (shrink)

In this chapter we discuss some of the central ethical issues specific to eating and harvesting fish. We survey recent research on fish intelligence and cognition and discuss possible considerations that are distinctive to questions about the ethics of eating fish as opposed to terrestrial and avian mammals. We conclude that those features that are distinctive to the harvesting and consumption of fish, including means of capture and the central role that fishing plays in many communities, do not suggest that (...) eating fish is less morally problematic than eating terrestrial of avian animals. (shrink)

Taken collectively, consumer food choices have a major impact on animal lives, human lives, and the environment. But it is far from clear how to move from facts about the power of collective consumer demand to conclusions about what one ought to do as an individual consumer. In particular, even if a large-scale shift in demand away from a certain product (e.g., factory-farmed meat) would prevent grave harms or injustices, it typically does not seem that it will make a difference (...) whether one refrains from purchasing that product oneself. Most present-day food companies operate at too large a scale for a single purchase to make a difference to production decisions. If that is true, then it is not clear what point there is in refraining. This is “the problem of collective impact.” This chapter explores a range of proposals for how to solve this problem. (shrink)

This chapter identifies and critically examines a standard form of argument for organic and vegan alternatives to industrial agriculture. This argument faces important objections to its empirical premises, to its presumption that there is a single food system that minimizes harm and is best for the environment, and to the presumption that the ethically best food system for us to promote is the one that would be best in ideal theory or the one that would be best from the perspective (...) of our own society. Instead, determining which food system should be promoted arguably requires a complex global, empirical, and ethical integrated assessment that includes a proper accounting for values of global justice in nonideal theory. This proper accounting arguably recommends sustainable intensification of food systems (as it is called in the food-science literature), which is importantly distinct from contemporary systems as well as from organic, local, and/or vegan-centered alternatives. (shrink)

What can be said in favor of consuming animal products? This chapter surveys the options, with special focus on it attempts to exploit pro-vegan principles for anti-vegan ends. Utilitarian, rights-based, contractualist, and agrarian proposals are explored, as well as some recent arguments that attempt to revive a form of speciesism. Ultimately, the chapter considers how such arguments might inform a broad case for consuming animal products—that is, one that might earn respect from those in a variety of moral camps—and it (...) suggests that there may be good reasons to eat roadkill, bugs, bivalves, in vitro meat, animal products that will be wasted, and the bodies and byproducts of animals that live full, pleasant lives. (shrink)

This chapter examines the ethical case that can be mounted for veganism. Because there has been comparatively little discussion in ethics focused directly on veganism, the central aim of this chapter is threefold: to orient readers to (some of) the most important philosophical literature relevant to the topic, to provide a clear explanation of the current state of the ethical case for veganism, and to focus attention on the most important outstanding or underexplored questions in this domain. The chapter examines (...) the range of positions that deserve to be called ethical veganism, and some of the types of reasons that philosophers can potentially appeal to in arguing for veganism. It then spells out the core of the most promising case for veganism, which argues directly for the wrongness of making animals suffer and die. The chapter then considers three ways of arguing from this conclusion to an ethical defense of the vegan lifestyle, which appeal respectively to the ethical significance of the effects of individual use of animal products, of group efficacy, and of complicity with wrongdoing. The chapter concludes by examining several neglected complications facing the ethical case for veganism. (shrink)

This paper argues for what I call modest ethical veganism: the view that it is typically wrong to use or eat products made from or by animals such as cows, pigs, or chickens. The argument has three central parts. First, I argue that a central explanation for the wrongness of causing suffering rests upon what it is like to experience such suffering, and that we have good reasons to think that animals suffer in ways that are relevantly analogous to humans. (...) Second, I argue that animals can have better and worse lives, and that a central explanation for the wrongness of killing is that it deprives the victim of the valuable life that they would otherwise have had. Third, I argue that it is wrong to cooperate with massive wrongdoing. By consuming animal products, we typically support institutions that engage in massive and systematic wrongful treatment of animals. We thus ought to become vegan. (shrink)

Animal rights positions face the ‘predator problem’: the suggestion that if the rights of nonhuman animals are to be protected, then we are obliged to interfere in natural ecosystems to protect prey from predators. Generally, rather than embracing this conclusion, animal ethicists have rejected it, basing this objection on a number of different arguments. This paper considers but challenges three such arguments, before defending a fourth possibility. Rejected are Peter Singer’s suggestion that interference will lead to more harm than good, (...) Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka’s suggestion that respect for nonhuman sovereignty necessitates non-interference in normal circumstances, and Alasdair Cochrane’s solution based on the claim that predators cannot survive without killing prey. The possibility defended builds upon Tom Regan’s suggestion that predators, as moral patients but not moral agents, cannot violate the rights of their prey, and so the rights of the prey, while they do exist, do not call for intervention. This idea is developed by a consideration of how moral agents can be more or less responsible for a given event, and defended against criticisms offered by thinkers including Alasdair Cochrane and Dale Jamieson. (shrink)

Food, Animals, and the Environment: An Ethical Approach examines some of the main impacts that agriculture has on humans, nonhumans, and the environment, as well as some of the main questions that these impacts raise for the ethics of food production, consumption, and activism. Agriculture is having a lasting effect on this planet. Some forms of agriculture are especially harmful. For example, industrial animal agriculture kills 100+ billion animals per year; consumes vast amounts of land, water, and energy; and produces (...) vast amounts of waste, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. Other forms, such as local, organic, and plant-based food, have many benefits, but they also have many costs, especially at scale. These impacts raise difficult ethical questions. What do we owe animals, plants, species, and ecosystems? What do we owe people in other nations and future generations? What are the ethics of risk, uncertainty, and collective harm? What is the meaning and value of natural food in a world reshaped by human activity? What are the ethics of supporting harmful industries when less harmful alternatives are available? What are the ethics of resisting harmful industries through activism, advocacy, and philanthropy? The discussion ranges over cutting-edge topics such as effective altruism, abolition and regulation, revolution and reform, individual and structural change, single-issue and multi-issue activism, and legal and illegal activism. This unique and accessible text is ideal for teachers, students, and anyone else interested in serious examination of one of the most complex and important moral problems of our time. (shrink)

An accessible yet rigorous introduction to the field, Environmental Ethics: Theory in Practice helps students develop the analytical skills to effectively identify and evaluate the social and ethical dimensions of environmental issues. Covering a wide variety of theories and critical perspectives, author Ronald Sandler considers their strengths and weaknesses, emphasizes their practical importance, and grounds the discussions in a multitude of both classic and contemporary cases and examples. FEATURES * Discusses a wide range of theories of environmental ethics, representing their (...) strengths and weaknesses as charitably as possible without advocating for any particular theory, thereby encouraging students to think critically about which views are well justified and which are not * Extensive use of cases and examples links theoretical and practical issues and shows how environmental issues have both social and ecological components; issues covered include climate change, species conservation, ecological economics, consumption, environmental justice, intergenerational justice, genetically modified crops, animal agriculture, population, environmental rights, and food security, among many others * Incorporates both classic and cutting-edge cases and examples; iconic cases include the spotted owl, Bhopal chemical link, and Hetch Hetchy controversies, while contemporary cases include lead contamination of Flint, Michigan's water supply and innovations is conservation genetics, including conservation cloning, deextinction, and gene drives * Covers food ethics--addressing such topics as genetic engineering, food systems, food waste, and eating animals--and technology ethics, reflecting on technological power and the role of technology in creating and responding to environmental issues * Emphasizes the social justice dimensions of environmental problems with chapters on environmental justice, food security, ecofeminism, and more * Includes text boxes that provide extended discussions of cases; thought experiments; additional coverage of theoretical issues discussed in the main text; and exercises that ask students to apply theories or reflect on how theoretical issues intersect with practical problems * Provides numerous pedagogical aids including review questions, discussion questions, key terms and additional reading lists at the end of each chapter, extensive internal cross-referencing, a glossary of key terms and concepts, and more than thirty images, illustrations, tables, and graphs. (shrink)

Many people think that animal liberation would require a fundamental transformation of basic beliefs. We would have to give up "speciesism" and start viewing animals as our equals, with rights and moral status. And we would have to apply these beliefs in an all-or-nothing way. But in Ethics and the Beast, Tzachi Zamir makes the radical argument that animal liberation doesn't require such radical arguments--and that liberation could be accomplished in a flexible and pragmatic way. By making a case for (...) liberation that is based primarily on common moral intuitions and beliefs, and that therefore could attract wide understanding and support, Zamir attempts to change the terms of the liberation debate. Without defending it, Ethics and the Beast claims that speciesism is fully compatible with liberation. Even if we believe that we should favor humans when there is a pressing human need at stake, Zamir argues, that does not mean that we should allow marginal human interests to trump the life-or-death interests of animals. As minimalist as it sounds, this position generates a robust liberation program, including commitments not to eat animals, subject them to factory farming, or use them in medical research. Zamir also applies his arguments to some questions that tend to be overlooked in the liberation debate, such as whether using animals can be distinguished from exploiting them, whether liberationists should be moral vegetarians or vegans, and whether using animals for therapeutic purposes is morally blameless. (shrink)

Sorabji surveys a vast range of Greek philosophical texts and considers how classical discussions of animals' capacities intersect with central questions, not only in ethics but in the definition of human rationality as well.

Most ethical discussions about diet are focused on the justification of specific kinds of products rather than an individual assessment of the moral footprint of eating products of certain animal species. This way of thinking is represented in the typical division of four dietary attitudes. There are vegans, vegetarians, welfarists and ordinary meat -eaters. However, the common “all or nothing” discussions between meat -eaters, vegans and vegetarians bypass very important factors in assessing dietary habits. I argue that if we want (...) to discover a properly assessed moral footprint of animal products, we should take into consideration not only life quality of animals during farming or violation of their rights—as is typically done—but, most of all, their body weight, life time in farms and time efficiency in animal products acquisition. Without these factors, an assessment of animal products is much too simplified. If we assume some easily accepted premises, we can justify a thesis that, regardless of the treatment of animals during farming and slaughtering, for example, eating chicken can be 163 times morally worse than eating beef, drinking milk can be 58 times morally better than eating eggs, and eating some types of fish can be even 501 times worse than eating beef. In order to justify such a thesis there is no need to reform common morality by, for example, criticizing its speciesism. The thesis that some animal products are much worse than others can be justified on common moral grounds. (shrink)

Over the past century, animal agriculture in the United States has transformed from a system of small, family farms to a largely industrialized model—often known as ‘industrial farm animal production’ (IFAP). This model has successfully produced a large supply of cheap meat, eggs and dairy products, but at significant costs to animal welfare, the environment, the risk of zoonotic disease, the economic and social health of rural communities, and overall food abundance. Over the past 40 years, numerous critiques of IFAP (...) have been published, for both academic and non-academic audiences, mostly focusing on our obligations to animals. Here we offer a comprehensive critique of IFAP, focusing not only on our obligations to animals, but also important environmental, social, economic, and public health concerns. Our cumulative argument proceeds in five steps: (1) we briefly review the structure and key characteristics of IFAP; (2) we review the adverse effects of IFAP; (3) we review the historical development and positive rationale for IFAP; (4) we summarize previous moral critiques of IFAP, as well as defenses of it; and (5) we offer a moral critique of IFAP based on the common morality, and in particular on a principle of nonmaleficence, which we take to be the least controversial argument. (shrink)

The bay was sunlit and filled with boats, many of them just returned from early-dawn trips to the open sea. Fish that a few hours before had been swimming in the water now lay on the boat decks with glassy eyes, wounded mouths, bloodstained scales. The fishermen, well-to-do sportsmen, were weighing the fish and boasting about their catches. As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behavior toward creatures, (...) all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right. Herman had repeatedly pledged to become a vegetarian, but Yadwiga wouldn't hear of it. They had starved enough in the village and later in the camp. They hadn't come to rich America to starve again. The neighbors had taught her that ritual slaughter and Kashruth were the roots of Judaism. It was meritorious for the hen to be taken to the ritual slaugheterer, who had recited a benediction before cutting its throat (from Enemies, A Love Story. (shrink)

Scientists have shown that the practice of factory farming is an increasingly urgent danger to human health, the environment, and nonhuman animal welfare. For all these reasons, moral agents must consider alternatives. Vegetarian food production, humane food animal farming, and in-vitro meat production are all explored from a variety of ethical perspectives, especially utilitarian and rights-based viewpoints, all in the light of current U.S. and European initiatives in the public and private sectors. It is concluded that vegetarianism and potentially in-vitro (...) meat production are the best-justified options. (shrink)

Most people agree that inflicting unnecessary suffering upon animals is wrong. Many fewer people, including among ethicists, agree that painlessly killing animals is necessarily wrong. The most commonly cited reason is that death (without pain, fear, distress) is not bad for them in a way that matters morally, or not as significantly as it does for persons, who are self-conscious, make long-term plans and have preferences about their own future. Animals, at least those that are not persons, lack a morally (...) significant interest in continuing to live. At the same time, some argue that existence itself can be good, insofar as one’s life is worth living. For animals, a good life can offset a quick, if early, death. So, it seems to follow that breeding happy animals that will be (prematurely) killed can be a good thing overall. Insofar as slaughter and sale makes it economically sustainable to raise new ones, who would otherwise not exist, raising and killing animals for food who will have lives worth living is good overall. It benefits them as well as consumers, and makes the world better by adding to the sum of happiness. The process of raising and killing animals with positive welfare produces a sequence of replacement that maintains or increases overall welfare, all else being equal (assuming in particular no overall negative impact on the welfare of other parties). Call this the Replaceability Argument (RA) and the ensuing controversy the Replaceability Problem (RP). This is a problem at the crossroads of the ethics of killing, agricultural ethics, procreation ethics, and population ethics. (shrink)

Eating meat appeals, but the cost is measured in millions of slaughtered animals. This has convinced many that vegetarianism is morally superior to a carnivorous diet. Increasingly, those who take pleasure in consuming animals find it a guilty pleasure. Are they correct? That depends on the magnitude of harm done to food animals but also on what sort of a good, if any, meat eating affords people. This essay aims to estimate both variables and concludes that standard arguments for moral (...) vegetarianism are significantly misplaced. That is because the contribution of meat eating to lives of excellence is underestimated and overall harms to animals consequent on practices of meat eating are overestimated. The answer to the question posed in the title is, therefore, "No.". (shrink)

Many of the items that humans consume are produced in ways that involve serious harms to persons. Familiar examples include the harms involved in the extraction and trade of conflict minerals (e.g. coltan, diamonds), the acquisition and import of non- fair trade produce (e.g. coffee, chocolate, bananas, rice), and the manufacture of goods in sweatshops (e.g. clothing, sporting equipment). In addition, consumption of certain goods (significantly fossil fuels and the products of the agricultural industry) involves harm to the environment, to (...) future persons, and to current persons in low-lying and developing countries, by way of their impacts on climate change. When it comes to such large-scale harms, it's easy for the individual to feel helpless. Even if she sincerely wishes things were otherwise, she may wonder what she could possibly do to make them so. In this paper I briefly explore several promising avenues for generating duties in individuals to consume ethically, and develop one in particular: that an individual ought to signal her commitments to others, as a first step in collectivizing to act against unjust global labour practices. (shrink)

One of the starting assumptions in the debate over the ethical status of animals is that someone who is committed to reducing animal suffering should not eat meat. Steven Davis has recently advanced a novel criticism of this view. He argues that individuals who are committed to reducing animal suffering should not adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet, as Tom Regan an other animal rights advocates claim, but one containing free-range beef. To make his case Davis highlights an overlooked form (...) of animal harm, that done to field animals in crop production. Yet while Davis's argument is ingenious and thought-provoking, it is not a successful challenge to vegetarianism and veganism's status as the diets that most advance animal rights. Scientific studies of crop production that Davis draws on document two different forms of harm done to field animals: those that are directly killed by harvesting equipment and those that are killed by other animals. Once this distinction is made explicit, the degree to which such studies pose a problem for animal protection theory considerably weakens. Davis also overlooks philosophically significant forms of harm to human beings that are present in beef production but not crop harvesting. Finally, he bases his argument on the controversial assumption that there is no difference between deliberate and accidental killing - either of animals or people. Although these problems defeat Davis's attempt to offer an immanent critique of Regan's animal rights position, his analysis does have important dietary ramifications that animal advocates should take into account. (shrink)

Most legal systems divide the world into persons and property, treating human beings as persons, and pretty much everything else, including non-human animals, as property. Persons are the subjects of both rights and obligations, including the right to own property, while objects of property, being by their very nature for the use of persons, have no rights at all. I will call this the “legal bifurcation.” We might look to Immanuel Kant’s moral and political philosophy to provide a philosophical vindication (...) of the legal bifurcation, for reasons I will lay out in a moment. But in one way, that would be backwards, because Kant, in constructing the metaphysical categories that he used to talk about rights, was following the tradition of Roman law. (shrink)

Over the last twenty years, wildlife biologists and transportation planners have worked with environmental groups and state and tribal governments to mitigate the effects of human transportation arteries on animal habitats and movements. This paper draws connections between this growing field of road ecology and feminist science studies in order to accomplish two things. First, it aims to highlight the often unacknowledged roots that the interdisciplinary field of animal studies has in feminist theory. Second, it seeks to contribute to conversations (...) in the humanities and social sciences on roadkill and on wildlife biology by steering us into a world of practice that foregrounds mundane details. I approach this topic through interdisciplinary methods, including interviews with tribal and state wildlife biologists and participation in fieldwork on a western painted turtle tagging project. Although engaging in science and formulating policy are often understandably regarded by nonspecialists as practices that distance observers from their topic, in the world of roadkill prevention, I argue that the opposite is the case. What I call “intimate bureaucracies” are formed: arrangements of papers, policies, and people that bring a world of counting, and accountability, into being. (shrink)

Some arguments for moral vegetarianism proceed by appealing to widely held beliefs about the immorality of causing unjustified pain. Combined with the claim that meat is not needed for our nourishment and that killing animals for this reason causes them unjustified pain, they yield the conclusion that eating meat is immoral. However, what counts as a good enough reason for causing pain will depend largely on what we think about the moral status of animals. Implicit in these arguments is the (...) claim that sentience is sufficient for having moral status. These arguments, however, fail to specify the conceptual connection between the two. I argue in this paper that sentience is not sufficient for moral status. Thus, although animals experience pain as it is physically bad, their experience of it is not in itself morally bad. They are harmed in feeling pain, but this harm is not of a moral kind. This distinction parallels the more familiar distinction between moral and non-moral goods. When considered, this significantly mitigates the force of sentience-based arguments for moral vegetarianism. Since animals lack moral status, it is not wrong to eat meat, even if this is not essential to nutrition. (shrink)

Critics of industrial animal agriculture have argued that its practices are cruel, inhumane, or otherwise degrading to animals. These arguments sometimes form the basis of a larger case for the complete abolition of animal agriculture, while others argue for more modest welfare-based reforms that allow for certain types of industrial farming. This paper defends industrial farming against the charge of cruelty. As upsetting as certain practices may seem, I argue that they need not be construed as cruel or inhumane. Any (...) link between industrial farming and cruelty or inhumanity is contingent on certain cultural, behavioral, and psychological facts that are person-dependent. For many people working in animal agriculture, these facts do not obtain. To be sure, industrial animal agriculture has real moral hazards that must be carefully avoided, but all that this shows is that working with animals is not for everyone. (shrink)

In an earlier paper, I defended the moral permissibility of eating meat against sentience-based arguments for moral vegetarianism. The crux of my argument was that sentience is not an intrinsically morally salient property, and that animals lack moral status because they lack a root capacity for rational agency. Accordingly, it is morally permissible to consume meat even if doing so is not strictly necessary for our nutrition. This paper responds to critiques of my argument by Bruers :705–717, 2015) and Erdös. (...) I then show that their criticisms are easily dispatched and therefore fail to undermine my defense of meat consumption. (shrink)

This paper takes on several distinct but related tasks. First, I present and discuss what I will call the “Ignorance Thesis,” which states that whenever an agent acts from ignorance, whether factual or moral, she is culpable for the act only if she is culpable for the ignorance from which she acts. Second, I offer a counterexample to the Ignorance Thesis, an example that applies most directly to the part I call the “Moral Ignorance Thesis.” Third, I argue for a (...) principle—Don’t Know, Don’t Kill—that supports the view that the purported counterexample actually is a counterexample. Finally, I suggest that my arguments in this direction can supply a novel sort of argument against many instances of killing and eating certain sorts of animals. (shrink)

Like the subtitle says, this is an intro to food ethics that also collects writings on food ethics by others. Topics include: animals, consumption, farming, identity, justice, paternalism, religion, and workers.

Entomophagy—eating insects—is getting a lot of attention these days. However, strict vegans are often uncomfortable with entomophagy based on some version of the precautionary principle: if you aren’t sure that a being isn’t sentient, then you should treat it as though it is. But not only do precautionary principle-based arguments against entomophagy fail, they seem to support the opposite conclusion: strict vegans ought to eat bugs.