I stipulate that an academic discipline is societally relevant insofar as it helps to resolve a society’s real problems. What makes such a view correct depends on meta-normative views. I show how one’s meta-normative view significantly determines the likelihood that disciplinary philosophy is of societal relevance. On normative non-naturalism, normative naturalism, and normative scepticism, the societal relevance of philosophy is in doubt. I then argue that philosophers should aim for two remedies. They should be what I call omnivores and 'synthesisers, (...) aiming for empirically sound knowledge and interdisciplinary integration to achieve societal relevance independently of the correct meta-normative view. (shrink)

It is supererogatory to refrain from eating meat, just as it is supererogatory to refrain from driving cars, living in apartments, and wearing makeup, for the welfare of animals. If all animals are equal, and if nonhuman omnivores, such as bears and baboons, are justified in killing the members of other species, such as gazelles and buffaloes, for food, humans are also justified in killing the members of other species, such as cows, pigs, and chickens, for food. In addition, it (...) is fair for humans to eat animals because humans are also eaten by animals. (shrink)

Philosophers have offered several apparently powerful arguments against the permissibility of eating meat. However, the idea that it is okay to eat meat can seem like a bit of ethical common sense. This paper examines the attempt to adapt one of the most influential philosophical defenses of common sense –G. E. Moore’s case against the skeptic andthe idealist –in support of the omnivore. I first introduce and explain Moore’s argument against the skeptic. I then explain how that argument can be (...) adapted to address two influential philosophical arguments against the omnivore, due to Tom Regan and James Rachels. The adapted Moorean arguments appear strikingly similar to the original. However, I argue that we should not simply assume that all Moorean arguments are created equal. Instead, I propose a set of principled criteria that can be used to test Moorean arguments on a case-by-case basis. Those criteria give the Moorean reason for optimism against the skeptic, but suggest that the Moorean’s case is much weaker against the ethical vegetarian. I conclude that the Moorean omnivore’s argument has potentially uncomfortable implications for all sides in debates about ethical vegetarianism, and illuminates important and neglected questions about the force of philosophical arguments in applied ethics. (shrink)

My aim in this article is to challenge the standard North American diet’s (SAD) default status in church and among North American Christians generally. First, I explain what is at stake in my guiding question—“Is unrestrained omnivorism as typified by SAD spiritually beneficial?”—and then I attempt to allay some common skeptical concerns about the suitability of food ethics as a topic for serious Christian discernment. Second, I develop a prima facie case that SAD is not spiritually beneficial, drawing on (...) five traditional sources for Christian moral deliberation, including and especially general revelation and discernment of the fruits of the spirit. I conclude that, in the absence of a rebuttal vindicating SAD, the church should actively encourage Christians to adopt more redemptive eating habits, and Christians who are able should take action toward this end. (shrink)

Recourse to a variety of well-constructed arguments is undoubtedly a significant strategic asset for cultivating more ethical eating habits and convincing others to follow suit. Nevertheless, common obstacles often prevent even the best arguments from getting traction in our lives. For one thing, many of us enter the discussion hampered by firmly-entrenched but largely uninvestigated assumptions about food that make it difficult to imagine how even well-supported arguments that challenge our familiar frames of culinary reference could actually apply to us. (...) When an argument contests our cherished food ways, we are inclined almost reflexively to dodge, downplay, or dismiss it, and all the more anxiously if we suspect it’s a good one. Moreover, even when we find such arguments convincing and resolve to change, we often discover to our chagrin that, when the buffet is open, we lack the will to act on our convictions. Whether the obstacle is a lack of imagination or a failure of will, the way to concrete moral progress is blocked. Our aim here is to consider how other modes of philosophical inquiry can help us to overcome these two obstacles that arise at the margins of philosophy’s argumentative contributions to food ethics. In part I, we diagnose these obstacles as common moral malaises—we call them the malaise of imagination and the malaise of will—that create existential unease for moral agents that can curtail their ability to eat in accordance with what they learn from philosophical arguments. We then propose that other modes of philosophical inquiry can serve as therapy for these malaises. In part II, we argue that philosophical hermeneutics (exemplified by Hans-Georg Gadamer) can treat the malaise of imagination by helping us to excavate and revise hidden prejudices that interfere with our ability authentically to engage arguments that challenge entrenched assumptions about food. In part III, we argue that philosophy as care of the self (exemplified by Pierre Hadot) can treat the malaise of will by helping us to identify habits of thought and action that hamper concrete progress toward new dietary ideals and to replace them, through repetitive exercises, with transformed habits. In a brief conclusion, we identify some benefits of this approach. (shrink)

Freeganism is the practice of eating food that is free. It is commonly associated with recovering food that grocery stores and restaurants have thrown away, but vegetables grown in one’s garden and other free foods, such as leftovers from a work event, would also qualify. It is worth asking whether there is a form of freeganism that can be justified in new omnivorist terms. Could it be consistent with animal protection to eat meat, just so long as we don’t pay (...) for it? -/- I argue that from an animal protection point of view, freegan meat consumption faces two difficulties. The first is that when it involves the consumption of animal flesh conventionally regarded as edible (chicken, pork, beef, etc.) but not other types of flesh commonly considered inedible (mice, dogs, etc.), the practice is likely to be rooted in speciesism. This runs contrary to new omnivorism’s own principles, which are anti-speciesist. In addition, when the meat in question is the product of animal agriculture, consuming it will amount to a form of complicity in the industry’s wrong-doing, as the rationale for the animal’s slaughter will be retroactively endorsed. Either of these two considerations taken by itself will suffice to generate a presumption against freegan meat consumption. -/- My analysis, however, does not address every conceivable defense of freegan meat consumption. In particular, neither consideration generates a reason to avoid all animal by-products, such as eggs from backyard chickens that are well cared for. But given that the by-products in question will not be industrially produced, such consumption is likely to be permissible only in exceptional instances, rather than a practice available to society at large. (shrink)

The moral status of animals is a subject of controversy both within and beyond academic philosophy, especially regarding the question of whether and when it is ethical to eat meat. A commitment to animal rights and related notions of animal protection is often thought to entail a plant-based diet, but recent philosophical work challenges this view by arguing that, even if animals warrant a high degree of moral standing, we are permitted - or even obliged - to eat meat. Andy (...) Lamey provides critical analysis of past and present dialogues surrounding animal rights, discussing topics including plant agriculture, animal cognition, and in vitro meat. He documents the trend toward a new kind of omnivorism that justifies meat-eating within a framework of animal protection, and evaluates for the first time which forms of this new omnivorism can be ethically justified, providing crucial guidance for philosophers as well as researchers in culture and agriculture. (shrink)

This article brings animal protection theory to bear on Temple Grandin’s work, in her capacity both as a designer of slaughter facilities and as an advocate for omnivorism. Animal protection is a better term for what is often termed animal rights, given that many of the theories grouped under the animal rights label do not extend the concept of rights to animals. I outline the nature of Grandin’s system of humane slaughter as it pertains to cattle. I then outline (...) four arguments Grandin has made defending meat-eating. On a protection-based approach, I argue, Grandin’s system of slaughter is superior to its traditional counterpart. Grandin’s success as a designer of humane slaughterhouses however is not matched by any corresponding success in offering a moral defence of meat-eating. Despite, or perhaps because of, the popularity of her work, Grandin’s arguments for continuing to eat animals are noteworthy only in how disappointing and rudimentary they are. If we can thank Grandin for making a difference in the lives of millions of farm animals, her work can also be criticized for not engaging the moral status of animals with the depth and rigor that it deserves. (shrink)

If non-human animals have high moral status, then we commit a grave moral error by eating them. Eating animals is thus morally risky, while many agree that it is morally permissible to not eat animals. According to some philosophers, then, non-animal ethicists should err on the side of caution and refrain from eating animals. I argue that this precautionary argument assumes a false dichotomy of dietary options: a diet that includes farm-raised animals or a diet that does not include animals (...) of any kind. There is a third dietary option, namely, a diet of plants and non-traditional animal protein, and there is evidence that such a diet results in the least amount of harm to animals. It follows therefore that moral uncertainty does not support the adoption of a vegetarian diet. (shrink)

One popular defence of moral omnivorism appeals to facts about the indirectness of the diner’s causal relationship to the suffering of farmed animals. Another appeals to the claim that farmed animals would not exist but for our farming practices. The import of these claims, I argue, has been misunderstood, and the standard arguments grounded in them fail. In this paper, I develop a better argument in defence of eating meat which combines resources from both of these strategies, together with (...) principles of population ethics, and discuss its implications for which sorts of meat it is permissible to eat. According to the diner’s defence, there is an asymmetry between producers and consumers of meat. Producers can prevent the suffering of animals without preventing their existence, but consumers cannot. This asymmetry grounds a defence against harm-based objections to eating meat which is available to the consumer alone, and which avoids the controversial commitments about moral status or the interests of nonhuman animals endemic to existing attempts to justify omnivorism. (shrink)

Recent decades have witnessed the rise of chefs to a position of cultural prominence. This rise has coincided with increased consciousness of ethical issues pertaining to food, particularly as they concern animals. We rank cookbooks by celebrity chefs according to the minimum number of sentient animals that must be killed to make their recipes. On our stipulative definition, celebrity chefs are those with their own television show on a national network in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada or Australia. (...) Thirty cookbooks by 26 such chefs were categorized according to the total number of cows, pigs, chicken, fish and other species they included as ingredients. The total number of animals killed was divided by the number of non-dessert recipes to generate an average number of animal deaths per recipe for each book. We outline the rationale for our project and its methodology before presenting a ranked table of 30 cookbooks by celebrity chefs. This method generates several interesting findings. The first concerns the wide variation in animal fatalities among cookbooks. The chef with the heaviest animal footprint killed 5.25 animals per recipe, while the omnivorous chef with the smallest footprints killed 0.19 per recipe. Clearly, not all approaches to meat eating are equal when it comes to their animal mortality rate. Pigs and large ruminants are all substantially bigger than poultry, which are themselves bigger than many fish. The prime determinant of a chef’s place in the index was the number of small animals his or her recipes required. Whether a chef cooked in the style of a particular cuisine (Italian, French, Mexican etc.), by contrast, had no discernible influence on his or her ranking. We analyze how different chefs present themselves—as either especially sensitive or insensitive to ethical issues involving animals and food—and note cases where these presentations do or do not match their index ranking. -/- . (shrink)

Among the terrestrial species, the majority 332 species is represented by small Volant and non Volant species belonging to the orders Vandeleuria is a small genus of rodent also known long-tailed climbing mouse. Vandeleuria Nilagirica is a Subspecies of Vandelueuria Olaracia species is divided by geographical variations and morphological characterized described namely dumeticola Hodgson, Nilagirica Jerodon, Spandicea Ryley, Rubida Thomas, Modesta Thomas, and Nolthenii Phillips as its Sub Species and the synonymized wrought on Ryley with the nominate sub species and (...) Provensis Hodgson, badius Blyth and marica Thomas with dumesticola Hodgson (V.V Agarwal and Chakraborty 1980). Vandeleuria nilagirica is longer tails, arboreal,It is very shy Nocturnal and omnivore, feeding is usually the spruce leaves and small flower sand buds of small plants that includes small insects also. IUCN status of this species is Endangered. This species is Endamic to the tropical forest along the Northern Western Ghats, Nilgiri Hills (Musses & Carleton 2005). Species altitudinal range is 900 to 2100 M. Theses are found in mountainous areas where there is no hassle. It is Listed as a under scheduled ‘V’ of the Indian wild life Act. As compared to other zones, the frequency of occurrence of F. pennanti and B. bandicota was found to be very low at all the localities in southeastern Rajasthan. Some of the hills have been afforested and the plantations have a very low herbaceous ground cover. This may be one of the reasons of low occurrence of the long-tailed tree mouse, Vandeleuriaoleracea. Suncus stoliczkanus, the Anderson’s shrew was found to be absent in this zone (Ishwar prakash & Himmat Singh 2001). In Thar desert Maximum number of Vandeleuria oleracea 66.6% Species Was observed ( Prakash I,PratapSingh 2005) .Human Disturbance, floods, habitat loss & degradation found to be major threat to these species. This small mammal is plays in important role in the Environment. (shrink)

Smith makes his case against V-ism by appeals to (i) plant sentience, and (ii) the Transitivity of Eating principle [by which V-ans eat animals, since plants feed on decomposed animals]. By (i), V-ans are inconsistent in their prohibitions; by (ii) V-ism is impossible. -/- But, I argue, Smith and his beloved omnivore animists face similar pressures, insofar as they prohibit cannibalism.

"C.E. Emmer’s article addresses the ongoing debates over how to classify and understand kitsch, from the inception of postmodern culture onwards. It is suggested that the lack of clear distinction between fine art and popular culture generates 'approaches to kitsch – what we might call 'deflationary' approaches – that conspire to create the impression that, ultimately, either 'kitsch' should be abandoned as a concept altogether, or we should simply abandon ourselves to enjoying kitschy objects as kitsch.' The author offers critical (...) insight into 'kitschy' items made in response to 9/11 and tries to examine the reception of these products through scrutinizing a selection of remarks posted by the Internet commentators." Editor Justyna Stępień's summary from her introduction to Redefining Kitsch and Camp in Literature and Culture (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), p. 2. The final pages of the chapter analyze the seemingly sweet landscape paintings of Thomas Kinkade to show the spirit of revenge their Christian coding can conceal. (shrink)

Many people believe that if we could produce meat without animal suffering—say, in ‘humane’ or ‘happy’ farms, or by growing it in a lab from biopsied cells—there would be no moral problem with doing so. This chapter argues otherwise. There is something morally ‘off’ with eating the flesh of sentient beings however it is produced. It is ‘off’ because anyone who truly understands the intimate relationship that an animal’s body stands in to all the value and disvalue in their lives (...) would not want to eat flesh. The chapter concludes by arguing that, as a society, we should not switch over to ‘happy’ or lab-grown meat. Instead, it is imperative that we pursue a public reckoning on our treatment of animals in factory farms, not only for the sake of animals, but for the sake of humanity itself. (shrink)

In recent years, some ethicists have defended that we should genetically engineer farmed animals to diminish or eliminate their capacity to experience negative affective states, a process known as disenhancement that would, according to these authors, result in a situation that is better than the status quo. While we agree with this overall assessment, we believe that it is a mistake to defend disenhancement as a good solution to farmed animals’ plight. This is because disenhancement entails some generally unseen harms (...) that arise from the fact that negative affective states, despite feeling bad, support the access to a number of intrinsic goods, such as individuality, social relationships, meaning, and political participation. Though farmed animals currently have few opportunities to enjoy these goods, we argue that this is a reason to change the environment in which they are kept, not the animals. If we truly care about improving farmed animals’ lives, we should aim to enrich their environment, rather than impoverish their mental lives. (shrink)