This paper describes a pair of dietary practices I label default vegetarianism and default veganism. The basic idea is that one adopts a default of adhering to vegetarian and vegan diets, with periodic exceptions. While I do not exhaustively defend either of these dietary practices as morally required, I do suggest that they are more promising than other dietary practices that are normally discussed like strict veganism and vegetarianism. For they may do a better job of striking a (...) balance between normative concerns about contemporary farming practices and competing considerations of life. Additionally, I argue that framing discussions in terms of defaults is useful for various reasons: it helps organize agreements and disagreements, it more accurately reflects the way people conceptualize their dietary practices, and it presents a more dialectically effective 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)

Ethical vegetarians maintain that vegetarianism is morally required. The principal reasons offered in support of ethical vegetarianism are: (i) concern for the welfare and well-being of the animals being eaten, (ii) concern for the environment, (iii) concern over global food scarcity and the just distribution of resources, and (iv) concern for future generations. Each of these reasons is explored in turn, starting with a historical look at ethical vegetarianism and the moral status of animals.

1. Animal Cruelty Industrial farming is appallingly abusive to animals. Pigs. In America, nine-tenths of pregnant sows live in “gestation crates. ” These pens are so small that the animals can barely move. When the sows are first crated, they may flail around, in an attempt to get out. But soon they give up. Crated pigs often show signs of depression: they engage meaningless, repetitive behavior, like chewing the air or biting the bars of the stall. The sows live like (...) this for four months. Gestation crates will be phased out in Europe by the end of 2012, but they will still be used in America.1 In nature, pigs nurse their young for about thirteen weeks. But in industrial farms, piglets are taken from their mothers after about ten days. Because the piglets are weaned prematurely, they develop a lifelong craving to suck and chew. But the farmers don’t want them sucking and chewing on other pigs’ tails. So the growers routinely snip off the tails of all their pigs. They do this with a pair of pliers and no anesthetic. However, the whole tail is not removed; a tender stump remains. The point is to render the area sensitive, so the pigs being chewed on will fight back. Which they do.2 Over 113 million pigs are slaughtered each year in America.3 Typically, these pigs are castrated, their needle teeth are clipped, and one of their ears is notched for identification —all without pain relief.4 In nature, pigs spend up to three quarters of their waking hours foraging and exploring their environment.5 But in the factory farms, “tens of thousands of hogs spend their entire lives ignorant of earth or straw or sunshine, crowded together beneath a metal roof standing on metal slats suspended over a septic tank. ”6 Bored, and in constant pain, the pigs must perpetually inhale the fumes of their own waste. These pigs often get sick, and their ill health is exacerbated by the overcrowding. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Agriculture compared hog farms containing over 10,000 pigs—which is the norm—with farms containing under 2,000 pigs. (shrink)

Challenging the basic assumptions of a meat-eating society, Deep Vegetarianism is a spirited and compelling defense of a vegetarian lifestyle. Considering all of the major arguments both for and against vegetarianism and the habits of meat-eaters, vegetarians, and vegans alike, Michael Allen Fox addresses vegetarianism's cultural, historical, and philosophical background; details vegetarianism's impact on one's living and thinking; and relates vegetarianism to classical and recent defenses of the moral status of animals. Demonstrating how a vegetarian (...) diet is related to our awareness of the world and our ethical outlook on life, Fox looks at the different kinds of vegetarian commitments people make and their reasons for making them. In chapters that address such issues as the experiences, emotions, and grounds that are part of choosing vegetarianism, Fox discusses not only good health, animal suffering, and the environmental impacts of meat production, but such issues as the meaning of food, world hunger, religion and spirituality, and, significantly, the links share between vegetarianism and other human rights movements and ideologies, particularly feminism. In an extensive chapter that addresses arguments made by advocates of meat-eating, Fox speaks to claims of humans as natural carnivores, animals as replaceable, and vegetarians as anti-feminist. He also addresses arguments surrounding the eating habits of indigenous peoples, eating free-range animals, and carnivorous behavior among animals. The most complete examination of the vegetarian outlook to date, Deep Vegetarianism reveals the broad range of philosophical views that contribute to such a choice. It recognizes, and calls for, a conscious awareness of -- and an individual responsibility to -- the issues that exist in the moral, political, and social spheres of our existence. With its lively and controversial discussion, Deep Vegetarianism promises to appeal to anyone looking to explore the relationship between dietary choice, lifestyle, the treatment of animals and the environment, and personal ethical responsibility. It will also be particularly useful for students and teachers of moral philosophy, ethics, religion, comparative cultures, ecology, and feminism. (shrink)

Ethical consequentialist vegetarians believe that farmed animals have lives that are worse than non-existence. In this paper, I sketch out an argument that wild animals have worse lives than farmed animals, and that consistent vegetarians should therefore reduce the number of wild animals as a top priority. I consider objections to the argument, and discuss which courses of action are open to those who accept the argument.

A four-part series of dialogues between two philosophy students, M and V. The question: is it wrong to eat meat? M and V review the standard arguments plus a few new ones. Part 1 discusses the suffering caused by factory farming, and how one's intelligence affects the badness of suffering.

In this paper I draw together the notion of the absent referent as proposed by Carol J. Adams, and the notions of literal and symbolical sacrifice by eating the other — or ingestion — advanced by Jacques Derrida, to characterize how animals are commonly perceived, which ultimately forbids productive arguments for vegetarianism. I discuss animals as being literally and definitionally absent referents, and I argue, informed by Derrida’s philosophy, that it is impossible to aim at turning them into present (...) referents without reinforcing symbolic ingestion by linking symbolic ingestion to epistemic appropriation or conceptualization. With this, I highlight the ethical importance of discussing symbolic ingestion in animal philosophy. (shrink)

A four-part series of dialogues between two philosophy students, M and V. The question: is it wrong to eat meat? M and V review the standard arguments plus a few new ones. Part 2 discusses miscellaneous defenses of meat-eating. These include the claim that the consumer is not responsible for wrongs committed by farm workers, that a single individual cannot have any effect on the meat industry, that farm animals are better off living on factory farms than never existing at (...) all, that we can’t be sure animals feel pain, that animals can justly be eaten since they eat each other, that meat-eating is natural, that morality only protects those who can understand morality, that morality only protects members of society, and that only humans possess souls. (shrink)

A four-part series of dialogues between two philosophy students, M and V. The question: is it wrong to eat meat? M and V review the standard arguments plus a few new ones. Part 3 discusses the idea that creatures have different degrees of consciousness, the sense that certain animal welfare positions "sound crazy", and the role of empathy in moral judgment.

Kant’s moral theory aims at highest good, and he believes that good will is the mote unconditioned kind of good in the world. According to Kant, human beings are continually subject to the reason’ demand, and they should try to cultivate their humanity following the universal moral laws. However, he doesn’t leave us with an ambiguity about the definition of these universal laws; proposing his categorical imperative, he leads us to the universal laws. He believes that we would go toward (...) unconditionality and the highest good following these rules. By the way, there are different interpretations of his categorical imperatives as well as some their extensions. There are two possible interpretations of the third formulation of categorical imperatives and its relation to the animal rights in general, and the vegetarians’ viewpoint in particular. Some people might believe that “being end in itself” is incompatible with vegetarianism. They will invoke some quotes from Kant’s work which support their views. In The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant Explicitly prescribes killing the animals and making use of them, and it can be served as strong evidence to the idea that Kant's moral theory is inconsistent with vegetarianism. However, I don’t think so. According to the second possible interpretation, I believe that Kant’s moral theory is incompatible with the interpretations proposed by those who think it is not compatible with vegetarianism. In the first part of this paper, I briefly explain the relationship of reason and nature in Kant’s moral theory. Then in the second part, I shall explain two concepts of “person” and “things” in his texts, and briefly, state the difference between rational being and non-rational being in his philosophy. Then. In the third part, I will explore some pieces by my Kantian opponent of vegetarianism, and I shall show that their interpretation is some kind of oversimplification. On the basis of some passages of Kant’s writings, using one mental experiment, and one counterexample, I hope to show that Kant is completely sympathetic to vegetarianism. (shrink)

Hill explains that this book “is written both for non-philosophers and for students of philosophy. It is intended to say something both about philosophy, particularly applied moral philosophy, and about the argument for vegetarianism” (p. xiv). Since vegetarianism is an important topic in applied ethics, I had high expectations of this work. However, although the writing is commendably clear, and despite the fact that it is to be welcomed as the first book to bring together and discuss at (...) some length four different arguments for adopting a vegetarian diet, this book is disappointing both by philosophical and scholarly standards. (shrink)

As a moral foundation for vegetarianism and other consumer choices, act consequentialism can be appealing. When we justify our consumer and dietary choices this way, however, we face the problem that our individual actions rarely actually precipitate more just agricultural and economic practices. This threshold or individual impotence problem engaged by consequentialist vegetarians and their critics extends to morally motivated consumer decision-making more generally, anywhere a lag persists between individual moral actions taken and systemic moral progress made. Regan and (...) others press just this point against Singer's utilitarian basis for vegetarianism; recently Chartier criticizes act-consequentialist vegetarianism by identifying many factors weakening the connection between individual meat purchases and changes in animal production. While such factors are relevant to act-consequentialist moral reasoning, I argue, they need not defeat the act-consequentialist case for vegetarianism and consumer ethics. This is shown by offering a probabilistic account of the threshold issue and discussing the positive and negative role-modelling effects of our morally motivated dietary and consumer choices. (shrink)

A four-part series of dialogues between two philosophy students, M and V. The question: is it wrong to eat meat? M and V review the standard arguments plus a few new ones. Part 4 discusses what products one should renounce, the value of abstract theory, why people who accept the arguments often fail to change their behavior, and how vegans should react to non-vegans.

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.

Peter Singer argues, on consequentialist grounds, that individuals ought to be vegetarian. Many have pressed, in response, a causal impotence objection to Singer’s argument: any individual person’s refraining from purchasing and consuming animal products will not have an important effect on contemporary farming practices. In this paper, I sketch a Singer-inspired consequentialist argument for vegetarianism that avoids this objection. The basic idea is that, for agents who are aware of the origins of their food, continuing to consume animal products (...) is morally bad because it leads to not appropriately disvaluing the origins of their food. That is a morally bad outcome that can be avoided by becoming vegetarian. (shrink)

The argument for vegetarianism from overlapping species goes like this. Every individual who is the subject of a life has a right to life. Some humans—e.g., the severely congenitally cognitively limited—lack language, rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness, and yet they are subjects of a life. Severely congenitally cognitively limited humans have a right to life. Some animals—e.g., all mammals—lack language, rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness, and yet they are subjects of a life. We ought to treat like cases alike. The cases (...) of some humans are like the cases of some animals. Therefore, some animals have a right to life. -/- The argument seems not to have moved many people to change their diets. The reason, I suggest, is not because the argument is unsound but because our ability to change our dietary practices is difficult and we lack the imaginative resources to see the world from a nonhuman perspective. -/- I suggest that creative artists are of great value here, and I provide an example by referring to the work of the American novelist, Cormac McCarthy. (shrink)

Because factory-farmed meat production inflicts gratuitous suffering upon animals and wreaks havoc on the environment, there are morally compelling reasons to become vegetarian. Yet industrial plant agriculture causes the death of many field animals, and this leads some to question whether consumers ought to get some of their protein from certain kinds of non factory-farmed meat. Donald Bruckner, for instance, boldly argues that the harm principle implies an obligation to collect and consume roadkill and that strict vegetarianism is thus (...) immoral. But this argument works only if the following claims are true: all humans have access to roadkill, roadkill would go to waste if those who happen upon it don’t themselves consume it, it’s impossible to harvest vegetables without killing animals, the animals who are killed in plant production are all-things-considered harmed by crop farming, and the best arguments for vegetarianism all endorse the harm principle. As I will argue in this paper, each claim is deeply problematic. Consequently, in most cases, humans ought to strictly eat plants and save the roadkill for cats. (shrink)

In this paper, I respond to the (infamous) causal impotence objection to the standard arguments for ethical vegetarianism. The paper defends a non-consequentialist response to this objection, one that draws on an account of the principle of non-maleficence inspired by Ross.

The article is a reductio ad absurdum of assumptions which are shared by a large number of followers of the animal welfare movement and utilitarianism. I argue that even if we accept the main ethical arguments for a negative moral assessment of eating meat we should not promote vegetarianism but rather beefism (eating only meat from beef cattle). I also argue that some forms of vegetarianism, i.e. ichtivegetarianism, can be much more morally worse than normal meat diet. In (...) order to justify these thesis I show that there are significant moral differences in the consumption of animal products from different species. (shrink)

Singer and Regan predicate their arguments -- for ethical vegetarianism, against animal experimentation, and for an end to animal exploitation generally -- on the equal considerability premise (EC). According to (EC), we owe humans and sentient nonhumans exactly the same degree of moral considerability. While Singer's and Regan's conclusions follow from (EC), many philosophers reject their arguments because they find (EC)'s implications morally repugnant and intuitively unacceptable. Like most people, you probably reject (EC). Never the less, you're already committed (...) to the mere considerability premise -- the premise that sentient nonhuman animals deserve some moral consideration, although not as much consideration as that owed humans. I argue that the mere considerability premise entails that vegetarianism is morally obligatory in most contexts and that animal experimentation is almost always wrong. Since you accept the mere considerability premise, you are already rationally committed to the immorality of eating meat and the wrongfulness of most animal experimentation. Hence, moral consistency requires that you stop eating meat and stop purchasing products tested on 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)

The encounter with critics of Western civilization, from vegetarianism and British anti-industrialist socialism, Thoreau's theories of civil disobedience and Tolstoy's evangelical Christianity, led Gandhi to a rediscovery of Indian tradition. Unlike other forms of Afro-Asian cultural nationalism, this claim was neither conservative nor separatist but led to a fresh reading of some key concepts from the Indian tradition combined with ideas from the Christian, the Islamic and the European humanistic traditions.

The way that nonhuman animals and other nonhuman sentient beings are portrayed in the Christian-based Harry Potter series, C. S. Lewis's Narnia series, and Tolkien's Middle Earth stories is discussed from a Christian animal liberationist perspective.Middle Earth comes closest to a liberationist ideal, in that vegetarianism is connected with themes of power, healing, and spirituality. Narnia could be described as a more enlightened welfarist society where extremes of animal cruelty are frowned upon, but use of animals for food is (...) acceptable. In contrast, the more recent Harry Potter series portrays a less enlightened attitude toward human and nonhuman animals. Animals are treated merely as ends, vegetarianism is unheard of, and the view that even iconic species have intrinsic worth is ridiculed. (shrink)

This well chosen collection of essays written by recognized scholars addresses many of the intriguing aspects concerning the controversy over meat consumption. These aspects include not only eating meat, but also hunting animals, breeding, feeding, killing, and shredding them for our use, buying meat, the economics of the meat industry, the understanding of predation and food webs in ecology, and the significance of animals for issues about nutrition, gender, wealth, and cultural autonomy. Dombrowski rightly notes that the contemporary debate regarding (...) philosophical vegetarianism has been profoundly shaped by the historical figures who have rejected or embraced the anthropocentrism entrenched in Western thought. Three anthropological-medical essays compare meat with vegetarian diets. Eight essays treat the recent philosophical debate over the moral status of animals and whether vegetarianism is obligatory. Several essays discuss religious views on meat-eating and vegetarianism. Three essays explore meat, patriarchy, and the exploitation of nature and animals with respect to race, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class. The last four essays debate how to understand predation, environmental ethics, and animal protection. This collection is a fine entrée for all readers of this journal, since the debate over meat must by now figure into every thinking person’s diet. (shrink)

In 1906, Henry Stephens Salt published a short collection of essays that presented several rhetorically powerful, if formally deficient arguments for the vegetarian position. By interpreting Salt as a moral sentimentalist with ties to Aristotelian virtue ethics, I propose that his aesthetic argument deserves contemporary consideration. First, I connect ethics and aesthetics with the Greek concepts of kalon and kalokagathia that depend equally on beauty and morality before presenting Salt’s assertion: slaughterhouses are disgusting, therefore they should not be promoted. I (...) suggest three areas of development since Salt’s death that could be fruitfully plumbed to rebuild this assertion into a contemporary argument: an updated analysis of factory farm conditions, insights from moral psychologists on the adaptive socio-biological benefits of disgust as a source of cognitive information, and hermeneutical considerations about the role of the audience that allow blameworthiness for slaughterhouse atrocities to be laid upon the meat-eater. (shrink)

Zangwill (“Our Moral Duty to Eat Meat”, “If you care about animals, you should eat them”) has argued that we have a duty to eat meat. In this paper I first show that Zangwill’s essays contain two distinct conclusions: (1) a rather weak thesis that his argument is officially supposed to establish, and (2) a much stronger, advertised thesis that his argument is not officially supposed to establish, but on whose basis he gives concrete recommendations for action and launches polemic (...) attacks on vegans, animal rights activists, and others. Consequently, I argue that Zangwill is likely culpable of some combination of epistemic failure, objectionable carnist activism, and trolling. In the second part of this paper I rebut Zangwill’s argument proper. I conclude by identifying some important issues in the vicinity concerning the suffering of wildlife and population ethics generalized to both human and non-human animals. (shrink)

This article is concerned with choices that parents or guardians make about the food they give to their children. Those with primary responsibility for the care of young children determine the set of foods that their children eat and have a significant impact on children’s subsequent dietary choices, both in later childhood and in adulthood. I argue that parents have a morally significant reason not to feed meat to their children, which stems from their fiduciary responsibility for the child’s moral (...) development. This should, at a minimum, be factored into parental decisions about their children’s diet. In the absence of compelling countervailing reasons, it will mean that parents should not, in an all-things-considered sense, feed meat to their children. This claim does not rely upon the obviously contentious claim that it is morally wrong to eat meat. Instead, the fact that children, when adults, may reasonably themselves come to believe that consuming meat is wrong gives parents morally compelling reasons to avoid acting in ways which may have the predictable consequence of corrupting the moral character of those for whom they are responsible. (shrink)

It is natural to assume that it can only be morally permissible for consumers to buy meat products if the breeding and killing of animals for the purpose of meat production is morally acceptable. is assumption presupposes a stable and morally relevant connection between the consumption and the production of meat. While both act-consequentialism and the Kantian idea of generalizability initially appear to support that view, neither of them succeeds in establishing a connection of the required kind.

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)

Narrowly understood, veganism is the practice of excluding all animal products from one’s diet, with the exception of human milk. More broadly, veganism is not only a food ethics, but it encompasses all other areas of life. As defined by the Vegan Society when it became an established charity in the UK in 1979, veganism is best understood as “a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude – as far as is possible and practicable – all forms of (...) exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment”. There are two main moral justifications for veganism, both of which rely on a common assumption: that sentience, i.e., the capacity to feel pleasure and pain, is the necessary and sufficient trait to be morally considerable. In what follows, I present these two justifications and a third one which, although less popular, captures some core intuitions among vegans. I then present a challenge faced by veganism and two arguments that reject it as discriminatory, and briefly conclude. (shrink)

In this interesting book Aronson discusses lapsed vegetarians, which she dubs lapsos. She argues that lapsos struggle with the implications of eating meat, and in so doing their spirits are strengthened. She offers the book not as a polemic, but rather a peace offering to soften the debate over meat eating, trace ambiguity and nuance, and suggest that being a vegetarian should not be so easy.

There is a simple but powerful argument against the human practice of raising and killing animals for food (RKF for short). It goes like this: 1. RKF is extremely bad for animals. 2. RKF is only trivially good for human beings Therefore, 3. RKF should be stopped. While many consider this argument decisive, not everyone is convinced. There have been four main lines of objection to it. In this paper, I provide new responses to these four objections.

In this paper I explore an epistemic asymmetry that sometimes occurs regarding the moral status of alternative actions. I argue that this asymmetry is significant and has ramifications for what it is morally permissible to do. I then show how this asymmetry often obtains regarding three moral issues: vegetarianism, abortion, and charitable giving. In doing so, I rely on the epistemic significance of disagreement and the existence of moral controversy about these issues.

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)

Anarchism provides a useful set of theoretical tools for understanding and resisting our culture’s treatment of non-human animals. However, some points of disagreement exist in anarchist discourse, such as the question of veganism. In this paper I will use the debate around veganism as a way of exploring the anarchist discourse on non-human animals, how that discourse can benefit more mainstream work on non-human animals, and how work coming out of mainstream environmental discourse, in particular the ecofeminist work of Val (...) Plumwood, can likewise benefit anarchist thought. Ultimately I will show that anarchism and some of the more radical strains of environmental philosophy such as ecofeminism can greatly contribute to each other and to Critical Animal Studies. (shrink)

The prospect of consumable meat produced in a laboratory setting without the need to raise and slaughter animals is both realistic and exciting. Not only could such in vitro meat become popular due to potential cost savings, but it also avoids many of the ethical and environmental problems with traditional meat productions. However, as with any new technology, in vitro meat is likely to face some detractors. We examine in detail three potential objections: 1) in vitro meat is disrespectful, either (...) to nature or to animals; 2) it will reduce the number of happy animals in the world; and 3) it will open the door to cannibalism. While each objection has some attraction, we ultimately find that all can be overcome. The upshot is that in vitro meat production is generally permissible and, especially for ethical vegetarians, worth promoting. (shrink)

This open access book revises Kant’s ethical thought in one of its most notorious respects: its exclusion of animals from moral consideration. The book gives readers in animal ethics an accessible introduction to Kant’s views on our duties to others, and his view that we have only ‘indirect’ duties regarding animals. It then investigates how one would have to depart from Kant in order to recognise that animals matter morally for their own sake. Particular attention is paid to Kant’s ‘Formula (...) of Humanity,' the role of autonomy and the moral law, as well as Kant’s notions of practical reason and animal instinct. The result is a deliberately amended version of Kantianism which nevertheless remains faithful to central aspects of Kant’s thought. The book’s final part illustrates the framework’s use in applied contexts, addressing the issues of using animals as mere means, the ethics of veganism and vegetarianism, and environmental protection. Nico Dario Müller shows how, when furnished with duties to animals, Kant's moral philosophy can be a powerful resource for animal ethicists. (shrink)

The ancient Stoics believed that virtue is the only true good and as such both necessary and sufficient for happiness. Accordingly, they classified food as among the things that are neither good nor bad but "indifferent." These "indifferents" included health, illness, wealth, poverty, good and bad reputation, life, death, pleasure, and pain. How one deals with having or lacking these things reflects one’s virtue or vice and thus determines one’s happiness or misery. So, while the Stoics held that food in (...) itself contributes nothing to a person’s happiness, how one obtains, prepares, and serves it, and both what and how one eats, all reveal a person’s character as good or bad. Thus, understanding the purpose of food, the necessity of frugality, and the virtue of temperance are all important in Stoicism. This paper traces the ethical views on food from Zeno of Citium and Chrysippus to Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. They agree that the wise and temperate know that simple, inexpensive foods in moderate amounts produced locally are easy to get and prepare, healthy for the body, and good for the mind. Thus, Stoicism dictates frugality of diet and the rejection of ambitious eating, gluttony, luxuries, delicacies, and gustatory extravagance. Some Stoics favor vegetarianism. All Stoics think it wise to limit eating and drinking to strict bodily need and to eradicate all food anxieties. (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 paper offers some refinements to a particular objection to act consequentialism, the “causal impotence” objection. According to proponents of the objection, when we find circumstances in which severe, unnecessary harms result entirely from voluntary acts, it seems as if we should be able to indict at least one act among those acts, but act consequentialism appears to lack the resources to offer this indictment. Our aim is to show is that the most promising response on behalf of act consequentialism, (...) the threshold argument, cannot offer a fully general prescription about what to do in cases of collective action. (shrink)

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)

The animal agriculture industry causes animals a tremendous amount of pain and suffering. Many ethical vegans argue that we therefore have an obligation to abstain from animal products in order to reduce this suffering. But this argument faces a challenge: thanks to the size and structure of the animal agriculture industry, any individual’s dietary choices are overwhelmingly unlikely to make a difference. In this paper, we criticize common replies to this challenge and develop an alternative argument for ethical veganism. Specifically, (...) we argue that individuals should abstain from animal products because vegans, as a group, successfully reduce animal suffering, and individuals are obligated to participate in, rather than free ride on, this collective endeavor. Or, at the very least, individuals have strong reasons to purchase fewer inhumanely raised animal products—even if they are not obligated to go vegan per se. (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)

We offer a relatively simple and straightforward argument that each of us ought to be vegan. We don’t defend this position by appealing to ‘animal rights’ or the view that animals and humans are ‘moral equals’. Rather, we argue that animal agriculture causes serious harms to other animals (such as pain, suffering and death) and these harms are morally unjustified or caused for no good reason. This is true for both ‘factory farming’ and smaller, so-called ‘humane’ farms. We argue that (...) attempts to justify these harms don’t succeed, and conclude that raising and killing animals for food is wrong. -/- In the second part of our essay we explain how this argument relates to the choices of individuals to buy and consume animal products. Since most people don’t raise and kill animals themselves, the argument above doesn’t directly address individuals’ daily choices. To address this concern, we offer a plausible, general moral principle that describes when consumers should not purchase or consume a product: most simply, we should not support those who act wrongly by seriously harming others, provided we can safely and easily do so. Since, for most people, it is safe and relatively easy to not support those who do wrong by raising and killing animals so they can be eaten, we should not buy or consume animal food products. -/- After making our case that we ought to be vegan, we respond to some of the more challenging objections to our argument. We argue that these objections don’t succeed and so, given our previous argument, nearly everyone is morally obligated to eat a vegan diet. (shrink)

When consumers choose to abstain from purchasing meat, they face some uncertainty about whether their decisions will have an impact on the number of animals raised and killed. Consequentialists have argued that this uncertainty should not dissuade consumers from a vegetarian diet because the “expected” impact, or average impact, will be predictable. Recently, however, critics have argued that the expected marginal impact of a consumer change is likely to be much smaller or more radically unpredictable than previously thought. This objection (...) to the consequentialist case for vegetarianism is known as the “causal inefficacy” (or “causal impotence”) objection. In this paper, we argue that the inefficacy objection fails. First, we summarize the contours of the objection and the standard “expected impact” response to it. Second, we examine and rebut two contemporary attempts (by Mark Budolfson and Ted Warfield) to defeat the expected impact reply through alleged demonstrations of the inefficacy of abstaining from meat consumption. Third, we argue that there are good reasons to believe that single individual consumers—not just individual consumers taken as an aggregate—really do make a positive difference when they choose to abstain from meat consumption. Our case rests on three economic observations: (i) animal producers operate in a highly competitive environment, (ii) complex supply chains efficiently communicate some information about product demand, and (iii) consumers of plant-based meat alternatives have positive consumption spillover effects on other consumers. (shrink)

Animal rights advocates reject the use of animals for commercial or scientific purposes. According to some, who are often branded as extremists, it would be wrong to kill or otherwise harm animals even if this were necessary for human health or survival. This, of course, contrasts sharply with the predominate attitude that animals are mere resources for human use and consumption. In this paper, I explore a view on animal ethics that is intermediate between these two extremes. According to this (...) view, while it is wrong to exploit animals for trivial purposes, it is morally acceptable to use animals for legitimate human needs. This permits subsistence hunting, for example, as well as certain types of animal research. This moderate view may seem like a reasonable position, but I argue against it. If other animals do have basic moral rights, then the moderate view is indefensible and the “extremism” of some animal rights advocates is unavoidable. (shrink)

Timothy Hsiao attempts to defend industrial animal farming by arguing that it is not inherently cruel. We raise three main objections to his defense. First, his argument rests on a misunderstanding of the nature of cruelty. Second, his conclusion, though technically true, is so weak as to be of virtually no moral significance or interest. Third, his contention that animals lack moral standing, and thus that mistreating them is wrong only insofar as it makes one more disposed to mistreat other (...) humans, is untenable on both philosophical and biological grounds. (shrink)