Author’s Abstract
- I argue that eating meat is morally good and our duty when it is part of a practice that has benefited animals. The existence of domesticated animals depends on the practice of eating them, and the meat-eating practice benefits animals of that kind if they have good lives. The argument is not consequentialist but historical, and it does not apply to non-domesticated animals. I refine the argument and consider objections.
Introduction
- Eating nonhuman animal meat is not merely permissible but also good. It is what we ought to do, and it is our moral duty. So I argue. I shall not distinguish the claim that eating meat is good from the claim that we ought to eat meat. The claim that it is our duty is a stronger claim. The claim that it is good and the claim that it is what we ought to do are closely related to the claim that it is our duty: if something is our duty, then it is good to do it, and we ought to do it. Furthermore, I take the goods, oughts, and duties here to be moral ones. Note also that by the word ‘animals’ in what follows, I mean nonhuman animals, and by ‘meat’ I mean nonhuman animal meat.
Contents
- The Benefit to Animals of Eating Meat
- Consciousness, Happiness, Suffering, and Death
- Three Comments
- Beneficial Historical Practices: Wild and Domesticated Animals
- Other Writers: Compare and Contrast
- Killing and Eating Enslaved Human Beings?
- Which Animals?
- Good and Good-For
- Who is Obligated?
- All Things Considered
- Coda
Comment:
See Zangwill - Our Moral Duty to Eat Meat
Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2023
- Mauve: Text by correspondent(s) or other author(s); © the author(s)