Selections are arranged chronologically, from antiquity to the present, and each selection includes an introduction. Appendices overview arguments against ethical vegetarianism. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc.

The article defends ethical vegetarianism, which, for present purposes, is stipulatively taken to be the view that it is morally wrong to eat animals when equally nutritious plant-based foods are available. Several examples are introduced to show that we all agree that animals deserve some direct moral consideration and to help identify and clarify several commonsense moral principles—principles we all accept. These principles are then used to argue that eating animals is morally wrong. Since you no doubt accept (...) these principles, the argument demonstrates that consistency with your own beliefs and values commits you to the immorality of eating meat and requires you to alter your eating behavior accordingly. [Article available online at no cost at links listed above.]. (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 1 discusses the suffering caused by factory farming, and how one's intelligence affects the badness of suffering.

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.

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.

The position of animals in theoretical imagination and society stems from the historical naturalization of basic epistemological and ontological categories, the complex socio-cultural genesis of concepts whose assumptions are not easy to unravel nowadays. The given understanding of subjectivity and sociability entails nature as its opposite, but also that all other categories in border classification areas are a priori subordinate to human interests and goals. The debates that took place during the 1970s and 1980s, when it comes to animal rights (...) movements and the ecofeminist movement, have made some sort of confusion in the then accepted approach to this issue. However, only recently has the current biopolitical theory, by posing the question of human determinism and taking into account the conceptual breakthroughs related to the boundary between biological species, established in modern discourse, brought significant innovations in the debate on vegetarianism. In order to explain the shifts that can be made in the debate in the area that opened up with biopolitical theory, two arguments that have dominated the debate for a long time – ethically and ecofeministically – are subjected to critical analysis. While the ethical and ecofeminist standpoints are focused on the categories of political subjectivity and anthropocentric assumptions, biopolitics raises the issue of overcoming the deep ambivalence of normative and practical solutions that characterize the human attitude towards animals and their planned and systematized killing for the requirements of the food industry. (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 major argument for vegetarianism is that eating animals causes unjustified suffering. While this argument has been articulated by several people, it has received surprisingly little attention. Here I restate it in a way that I believe is most convincing, considering and rejecting the two main justifications for causing suffering in order to eat animals. I compare it to some other prominent arguments for vegetarianism, and discuss a major objection to the argument which focuses on (...) whether the animals would not exist if not bred to be eaten. (shrink)

Animal rights and vegetarianism for ethical reasons are positions gaining in influence in contemporary American culture. Although I think that certain rights for animals are consistent with and even entailed by the Catholic understanding of morality, vegetarianism is not. There is a plausible argument for an omnivorous diet from a Rawlsian original position. It is in direct contradiction to the Rawlsian-influenced ethical vegetarianism espoused by Mark Rowlands. Vegetarianism is not the moral high ground: (...) ethical vegetarianism is in fact contrary to a position on animals that is fundamentally pro-life. (shrink)

The naïve argument against moral vegetarianism claims that if it is wrong for us to eat meant then it is wrong for lions and tigers to do so as well. I argue that the fact that such carnivores lack higher order mental states and need meat to survive do suffice to undermine the naive argument.

This essay examines Jacques Derrida’s contribution to recent debates in animal philosophy in order to explore the critical promise of his work for contemporary discourses on animal ethics and vegetarianism. The essay is divided into two sections, both of which have as their focus Derrida’s interview with Jean-Luc Nancy entitled “‘Eating Well’, or the Calculation of the Subject.” My task in the initial section is to assess the claim made by Derrida in this interview that Levinas’s work is dogmatically (...) anthropocentric, and to determine whether Levinas’s conception of ethics leaves a place for animals. In the second half of the essay I turn to an analysis of Derrida’s discussion of vegetarianism and its critical relation to the humanism and anthropocentrism that he is calling into question. The main argument that I seek to advance here is that deconstruction should not be strictly identified with vegetarianism (as certain of Derrida’s readers have suggested), but rather that what is needed is a thorough deconstruction of existing discourses on vegetarianism, a project that remains largely to be developed. (shrink)

Professor Kathryn George's Use and Abuse Revisited does not contain an accurate assessment of my On Vegetarianism, Morality, and Science: A Counter Reply. I show that she has misrepresented my moral and empirical argumentation.

"Nobis argues that Singer's consequentialist approach is inadequate for defending the moral obligation to become a vegetarian or vegan. The consequentialist case rests on the idea that being a vegetarian or vegan maximizes utility -- the fewer animals that are raised and killed for food, the less suffering. Nobis argues that this argument does not work on an individual level -- my becoming a vegetarian makes no difference to the overall utility of reducing animal suffering in a context of (...) a huge industry and market unaffected by my actions. Nobis merges the insights of virtue ethics with consequentialism to argue that individuals can bring about more goodness if they have the virtues of compassion, care, and sensitivity to unnecessary cruelty and suffering. If one ought to be compassionate, sensitive to cruelty, resist injustice, and be morally integrated, then, Nobis argues, one ought to be a vegetarian or vegan.". (shrink)

In a recent article, Timothy Hsiao criticizes the basic argument for moral vegetarianism. In this connection, Hsiao offers an interesting, original argument (that I'll christen Hsiao's Argument) with the conclusion that human consumption of meat solely for the purposes of nutrition trumps the welfare interests of nonhuman animals. In this article, however, I'll argue that if Hsiao's Argument isn't to be problematically circular, we have very strong grounds for thinking that it is either unsound or (...) invalid. Toward the end of this article, I'll also show that a slightly modified version of Hsiao's Argument—that I call Hsiao's Argument*—fares no better than Hsiao's Argument. So, the basic argument for moral vegetarianism looks to be in much better shape than Hsiao imagines. (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)

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)

I recently took issue with Kathryn George's contention that vegetarianism cannot be a moral obligation for most human beings, even assuming that Tom Regan's stringent thesis about the equal inherent value of humans and many sentient nonhumans is correct. I argued that both Regan and George are incorrect in claiming that his view would permit moral agents to kill and eat innocent, non-threatening rights holders. An unequal rights view, by contrast, would permit such actions if a moral agent's health (...) or life is at stake. I then argued that current nutritional research does not support Professor George's claim that some wealthy adult males (and many fewer wealthy women) are the only persons whose health does not require the consumption of nonhuman animals and their products. In her 1992 response to my critique, George did not address my moral argumentation. She concentrated her entire paper on a wholesale rejection of my discussion of nutrition. Although she now takes a somewhat more moderate position on who can safely contemplate strict vegetarianism, she still believes that most people are not in a position to follow such a diet. In my counter-reply, I argue that her rejection is based upon numerous distortions, omissions, and false charges of fallacy. She even devotes a substantial section of her paper to criticizing me for saying the opposite of what I actually wrote. As I did in my earlier paper, I cite current research, including George's own preferred source on the topic of vegetarianism, to support my view. I conclude that Professor George has still not shown that for most human beings it is dangerous to follow a diet that omits nonhuman animals and their products. Moral agents who take the rights of humansand nonhumans seriously will find vegetarianism well worth considering. (shrink)

In this article, Bailey analyzes the relationship between ethical vegetarianism and white racism. This plays out in the dreaded comparison of animals with people of color and Jews as exemplified in the PETA campaign and the need for human identification with animals in ethical vegetarianism. To support the viability of ethical vegetarianism, Bailey resolves the dread of this comparison by locating ethical vegetarianism as a strategy of resistance to classist, racist, heterosexist, and (...) colonialist systems of power that often rely on the assumptions of speciesism to ground these axes of oppression. The author carries out this argument to contextualize African American responses to animal welfarism and ethical vegetarianism. (shrink)

In this article, Bailey analyzes the relationship between ethical vegetarianism and white racism. This plays out in the dreaded comparison of animals with people of color and Jews as exemplified in the PETA campaign and the need for human identification with animals in ethical vegetarianism. To support the viability of ethical vegetarianism, Bailey resolves the dread of this comparison by locating ethical vegetarianism as a strategy of resistance to classist, racist, heterosexist, and (...) colonialist systems of power that often rely on the assumptions of speciesism to ground these axes of oppression. The author carries out this argument to contextualize African American responses to animal welfarism and ethical vegetarianism. (shrink)

: In this article, Bailey analyzes the relationship between ethical vegetarianism (or the claim that ethical vegetarianism is morally right for all people) and white racism (the claim that white solipsistic and possibly white privileged ethical claims are imperialistically or insensitively universalized over less privileged human lives). This plays out in the dreaded comparison of animals with people of color and Jews as exemplified in the PETA campaign and the need for human identification (or solidarity) (...) with animals in ethical vegetarianism. To support the viability of ethical vegetarianism, Bailey resolves the dread of this comparison by locating ethical vegetarianism as a strategy of resistance to classist, racist, heterosexist, and colonialist systems of power that often rely on the assumptions of speciesism to ground these axes of oppression. The author carries out this argument to contextualize African American responses to animal welfarism and ethical vegetarianism. (shrink)

One common objection to ethical vegetarianism—that is, vegetarianism for ethical reasons—concerns the morality of the predator-prey relationship. If it is morally acceptable for wolves to kill sheep for food, why is it wrong for human beings to eat meat? The objection raised here is sometimes called the “predation argument.” In this article, I critically examine three versions of the argument.

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)

Singer’s ethics assume an autonomous, impartial, abstract reasoner. Nonhuman animals, like human animals, have an interest in not suffering; so we all agree on an impartial, rational, consistent minimum standard of treatment that we see must extend to nonhuman animals. While I think this kind of argument works well in the “liberal” context of countries based on social contract reasoning, I am not convinced it goes far enough in achieving the desired attitude shift. We are still encouraged to think (...) in terms of the self-interest of an autonomous, impartial, abstract reasoner, and thus there are many instances in which it is perfectly “reasonable” to harm nonhuman animals. To challenge Singer I use views of the individual proposed by socialist feminist and radical feminist theories. Both of these theories (in all their variety) propose a substantial revisioning of the individual and thereby shift the focus from rights talk to issues of responsibility and care. While there are clear dangers in these approaches as well, I believe there is a fruitful combination of Singer’s argument with these feminist approaches that will help us see the deep nature of our connectedness to nonhuman animals and make us realize that the eating of meat is really a form of cannibalism. (shrink)

Singer’s ethics assume an autonomous, impartial, abstract reasoner. Nonhuman animals, like human animals, have an interest in not suffering; so we all agree on an impartial, rational, consistent minimum standard of treatment that we see must extend to nonhuman animals. While I think this kind of argument works well in the “liberal” context of countries based on social contract reasoning, I am not convinced it goes far enough in achieving the desired attitude shift. We are still encouraged to think (...) in terms of the self-interest of an autonomous, impartial, abstract reasoner, and thus there are many instances in which it is perfectly “reasonable” to harm nonhuman animals. To challenge Singer I use views of the individual proposed by socialist feminist and radical feminist theories. Both of these theories (in all their variety) propose a substantial revisioning of the individual and thereby shift the focus from rights talk to issues of responsibility and care. While there are clear dangers in these approaches as well, I believe there is a fruitful combination of Singer’s argument with these feminist approaches that will help us see the deep nature of our connectedness to nonhuman animals and make us realize that the eating of meat is really a form of cannibalism. (shrink)

It appears that utilitarian arguments in favor of moral vegetarianism cannot justify a complete prohibition of eating meat. This is because, in certain circumstances, forgoing meat will prevent no pain, and so, on utilitarian grounds, we should be opportunistic carnivores rather than moral vegetarians. In his paper, ‘Puppies, pigs, and people: Eating meat and marginal cases,’ Alastair Norcross argues that causal impotence arguments like these are misguided. First, he presents an analogous situation, the case of chocolate mousse a-la-bama, in (...) order to argue that we, individually, are not causally impotent. Second, Norcross offers a threshold argument in which he argues that while we may individually be causally impotent, when we adopt moral vegetarianism in concert with others, we become causally potent in preventing harms by factory farming. We argue that Norcross's responses ultimately fail to address the causal impotence objection. The former argument fails because it vastly oversimplifies the world in which we find ourselves. Given the size of factory farming, the reasonable conclusion is that we are in fact powerless to prevent harms to animals in factory farms in many or most cases. The latter argument fails because even if collective action will have an impact on factory farming, this does not provide us with an argument against being carnivores in certain circumstances. (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)

The animal liberation movement, among other goals, seeks an end to the use of animals for food. The philosophers who started the movement agree on the goal but differ in their approach: deontologists argue that rearing animals for food infringes animals’ inherent right to life. Utilitarians claim that ending the use of animals for food will result in the maximization of utility. Virtue-oriented theorists argue that using animals for food is callus, self-indulgent, and unjust, in short, it’s an unvirtuous practice. (...) Despite their different approaches, arguments for vegetarianism or veganism have a common step. They move from the notion of suffering to the conclusion of vegetarianism or veganism. In this paper I suggest that the notion of animal suffering is not necessary in order to condemn the practice of animal farming. I propose the possibility of defending vegetarianism or veganism on the basis of arguments that do not rest on the notion of animal suffering, but rather rely on aesthetic principles, the avoidance of violence, and preservation of the environment, and health. (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)

In a 1983 interview, Michel Foucault contrasts our contemporary interest in sexual identity with the ancient Greek preoccupation with diet, arguing that sex has replaced food as the privileged medium of self-constitution in the modern West. In the same interview, Foucault argues that modern liberation movements should return to the ancient model of ethics, of which diet was a prime example, as aesthetics or self-transformative practice. In this paper I take up Foucault's argument with respect to the Animal Liberation (...) Movement and the dietetics of ethical vegetarianism. Contra Foucault, I suggest that diet has not been replaced by sexuality in the modern West, and that food choices, along with and intertwined with sexuality, continue to function as practices of self-constitution in both disciplinary and aesthetic fashions. I then consider the implications of this argument for the Animal Liberation Movement, exploring ways in which it might (and to some degree already does) take on aesthetic rather than moral strategies in order to pursue what Foucault once described as “an ethics of acts and their pleasures which would be able to take into account the pleasure of the other.”. (shrink)

Malm and colleagues (2008) consider (and reject) five arguments putatively justifying the idea that healthcare workers (HCWs) have a duty to treat (DTT) during a pandemic. We do not have sufficient...

싱어는 공리주의에 입각하여 이익평등고려원칙을 만들고, 그 원칙에 근거하여 종차별주의를 공격한다. 그리고 육식을 종차별적 행위의 전형적 사례라고 비판한다. 그런데 공리주의는 쾌락 총량 극대화의 관점에서, 쾌고를 담고 있는 그릇에 불과한 자의식이 없는 동물들을 대체가능한 존재로 보게 된다. 이리하여 동물들은 자의식이 없는 대체 가능한 동물과 자의식적인 대체 불가능한 동물로 나누어진다. 그리고 그는 대체가능한 동물들을 인간이 자비롭게 도축해 먹으면서 다른 대체 동물들을 행복하게 사육하면 이론적으로 육식이 가능하게 된다는 결론에 빠져들게 된다. 우리가 앞에서 살펴보았듯이 그는 이런 식으로 자신의 생각을 전개해 나가는 과정에서, 그가 그토록 비난해마지 (...) 않았던 종차별주의적 사고방식을 보여준다. 자의식 여부를 기준으로 어떤 동물들은 죽이는 것이 허용되지만 어떤 동물들은 허용되지 않는다는 것이야 말로 전형적인 종차별주의적 사유이기 때문이다. 이는 무엇을 말해주는가? 윤리적 완전채식주의를 공리주의적으로 정당화하려는 싱어의 시도는 실패했다는 것이다. (shrink)

This article discusses the assumptions that are necessary to derive the conclusion that veganism - avoiding the use of animal products from conventional agriculture, hunting and fishing - is a moral duty. Using a formal-axiomatic framework, it is shown that twenty assumptions or axioms are sufficient to come to the conclusion. The argument is made as parsimonious as possible, using the weakest conditions, the most restrictive definitions and most reliable empirical facts. The argument assumes an antidiscrimination principle and (...) a weak basic right not to be used merely a means for someone else’s non-vital ends. It demonstrates that being a human is not morally relevant whereas sentience is a morally relevant criterion that meets the assumptions. If one does not agree with the conclusion that veganism is a moral duty, logical consistency requires that one must be able to indicate at least one axiom that one rejects. The argument makes hidden assumptions visible and provides a framework for a review of the philosophical literature about animal rights and vegetarianism/veganism. (shrink)

This article presents an argument for veganism, using a formal-axiomatic approach: a list of twenty axioms are explicitly stated. These axioms are all necessary conditions to derive the conclusion that veganism is a moral duty. The presented argument is a minimalist or core argument for veganism, because it is as parsimonious as possible, using the weakest conditions, the narrowest definitions, the most reliable empirical facts and the minimal assumptions necessary to reach the conclusion. If someone does not (...) accept the conclusion, logical consistency requires that s/he should be able to point at axiom on which s/he disagrees. The argument exposes hidden assumptions and provides a framework for an overview of the philosophical literature on animal rights and vegetarianism / veganism. (shrink)

This article provides a philosophical overview of some of the central Buddhist positions and argument regarding animal welfare. It introduces the Buddha's teaching of ahiṃsā or non-violence and rationally reconstructs five arguments from the context of early Indian Buddhism that aim to justify its extension to animals. These arguments appeal to the capacity and desire not to suffer, the virtue of compassion, as well as Buddhist views on the nature of self, karma, and reincarnation. This article also considers how (...) versions of these arguments have been applied to address a practical issue in Buddhist ethics; whether Buddhists should be vegetarian. (shrink)

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)

While moral arguments for vegetarianism have been explored in great depth, the arguments for veganism seem less clear. Although many animals used for milk and eggs are forced to live miserable lives on factory farms, it’s possible to raise animals as food resources on farms where the animals are treated more humanely and never slaughtered. Under more humane conditions, do we harm animals to use them for food? I argue that, even under humane conditions, using animals for food typically (...) harms animals by restricting their freedom. My argument raises an important question about the extent to which animals are harmed when their freedom is restricted. On one view, it is possible to restrict animals’ freedom without harming them so long as we don’t make them suffer. This view underestimates the value of freedom for animals. Even if animals aren’t made to suffer, restricting their freedom can harm them insofar as it deprives them of freely pursuing their enjoyments in life. My argument has implications for not only the ethics of using animals as food resources but also the ethics of using animals in zoos and circuses. I examine these implications and also consider what we should do with farm animals if we cease using them for food. (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)

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)

This paper defends a coherentist approach to moral epistemology. In “The Immorality of Eating Meat”, I offer a coherentist consistency argument to show that our own beliefs rationally commit us to the immorality of eating meat. Elsewhere, I use our own beliefs as premises to argue that we have positive duties to assist the poor and to argue that biomedical animal experimentation is wrong. The present paper explores whether this consistency-based coherentist approach of grounding particular moral judgments on beliefs (...) we already hold, with no appeal to moral theory, is a legitimate way of doing practical ethics. I argue that grounding particular moral judgments on our core moral convictions and other core nonmoral beliefs is a legitimate way to justify moral judgments, that these moral judgments possess as much epistemic justification and have as much claim to objectivity as moral judgments grounded on particular ethical theories, and that this internalistic coherentist method of grounding moral judgments is more likely to result in behavioral guidance than traditional theory-based approaches to practical ethics. By way of illustrating the approach, I briefly recapitulate my consistency-based argument for ethical vegetarianism. I then defend the coherentist approach implicit in the argument against a number of potentially fatal metatheoretical attacks. (shrink)

This chapter concerns the role accorded to animals in the theories of the English-speaking philosophers who created the field of environmental ethics in the latter half of the twentieth century. The value of animals differs widely depending upon whether one adopts some version of Holism (value resides in ecosystems) or some version of Animal Individualism (value resides in human and nonhuman animals). I examine this debate and, along the way, highlight better and worse ways to conduct ethical arguments. I (...) explain that two kinds of appeals (which I call intuition and reductio) are questionable foundations for environmental ethics and that representatives of both schools occasionally appeal unhelpfully to intuition or caricature the commitments of the other side. I review two stronger arguments for Ecoholism (inference and eco-organisms) and show that they have performed a useful function in environmental ethics. Ultimately, however, both arguments fail because their proponents are unable to answer four critical objections: weakness of will, no eco-organisms, no teleology, and is/ought. I then show that Animal Individualism operates on more secure footing when it comes to philosophical and scientific assumptions. I also propose that Animal Individualism is more likely to prove effective in establishing progressive environmental policies insofar as it builds on existing legal concepts, especially the concept of moral rights, and political institutions, such as democratic states. I note that wild animals are not inherently more valuable than domestic animals and, finally, offer a brief outline of an animal rights environmental ethic. (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)