The immorality of vegetarianism

Between the Species: An Online Journal for the Study of Philosophy and Animals, 1995

In Konstantinos Boudouris (Ed.) Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy. Athens: Greek Philosophical Society, 2018

There is a teeth-biting debate between vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism on human obligations towards animals. Vegetarianism appeals for equal and ethical treatment for animals whereas non-vegetarianism simply denies any such treatments considering that animals do not have a sense of morality. Non-vegetarianism seems to be ignoring some obligatory duties towards animals and undermines ethical arguments for animal rights. It does not provide sound reason for why humans should deliberately kill animals, painlessly or with least harm, for their own sake. It also overlooks the world economic situation of global hunger in which the use of the total food resources and distribution in terms of nutrition would be much more equitable if everyone was a vegetarian. This paper argues against non-vegetarianism and defends vegetarianism by making a claim that we do have moral obligations of certain kinds towards animals same as we have moral obligations towards us in terms of natural right to survival.

My approach will be to set out and defend that animals are conscious creatures that have the capacity to suffer, and therefore should not suffer or be killed unjustly. I set out to establish that animals have this vital characteristic, the capacity to suffer, which gives the animal the right to equal consideration of interests, as described by Peter Singer. I will also defend that the ethical question of whether one should live a vegetarian lifestyle should be decided on the context of the living circumstances of the human.

2018

Human eating habits are widely distinguished between Vegetarianism and Non-Vegetarianism, where former presumes themselves to be holding no moral risk toward nature and animals as they do not eat animal meats. However, if we examine it closely and thoroughly, every eating habits hold some or other moral risk. My paper is an attempt to unfold different arguments made in support and against the moral concern of Vegetarianism. Although it is impalpable to answer ‘What is morally good to eat?’, our discourse helps to bring forth different arguments to understand the moral concern of our eating habits.

A Critique of the Moral Defense of Vegetarianism, 2016

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2017

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The most popular and convincing arguments for the claim that vegetarianism is morally obligatory focus on the extensive, unnecessary harm done to animals and to the environment by raising animals industrially in confinement conditions (factory farming). I outline the strongest versions of these arguments. I grant that it follows from their central premises that purchasing and consuming factory-farmed meat is immoral. The arguments fail, however, to establish that strict vegetarianism is obligatory because they falsely assume that eating vegetables is the only alternative to eating factory-farmed meat that avoids the harms of factory farming. I show that these arguments not only fail to establish that strict vegetarianism is morally obligatory, but that the very premises of the arguments imply that eating some (non-factory-farmed) meat rather than only vegetables is morally obligatory. Therefore, if the central premises of these usual arguments are true, then strict vegetarianism is immoral.

Journal of Moral Philosophy, 2009

This paper defends a qualified version of moral vegetarianism. It defends a weak thesis and, more tentatively, a strong thesis, both from a very broad basis that assumes neither that animals have rights nor that they are entitled to equal consideration. The essay's only assumption about moral status, an assumption defended in the analysis of the wrongness of cruelty to animals, is that sentient animals have at least some moral status. One need not be a strong champion of animal protection, then, to embrace moral vegetarianism. One need only assume some reasonable view of animals' moral status.

Philosophy, 1978

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