In this paper, I attempt to demonstrate that environmental virtue ethics (EVE) fails to provide sufficient justification for the hunting of nonhuman animals. In order to do this, I examine an EVE justification for the hunting of nonhuman animals and argue that it gives rise to the following dilemma: either EVE justifies the hunting of both human and nonhuman animals, or it justifies the hunting of neither. I then submit that the first lemma ought to be rejected as absurd and, (...) thus, that the second lemma ought to be embraced. (shrink)

Would the virtuous person eat animals? According to some ethicists, the answer is a resounding no, at least for the virtuous person living in an affluent society. The virtuous person cares about animal suffering, and so, she will not contribute to practices that involve animal suffering when she can easily adopt a strict plant-based diet. The virtuous person is temperate, and temperance involves not indulging in unhealthy diets, which include diets that incorporate animals. Moreover, it is unjust for an animal (...) to be killed for food when this is unnecessary. By contrast, I argue that the virtuous person in an affluent society would eat animals, at least sometimes. I explain how the very virtues thought to motivate “virtuous modest veganism”—compassion, temperance, and justice—motivate the virtuous person to consume some animals. (shrink)