Presentation Title: “Is It Morally Permissible to Consume Humanely Raised Meat? Revising Jonathan Spelman’s Argument”
Abstract:
Is it morally permissible to consume humanely raised meat? Jonathan Spelman (2020) answers no. According to him, killing humanely raised puppies for the sake of enjoying the taste of chocolate is morally wrong. But this behavior is morally equivalent to consuming humanely raised meat. Therefore, consuming humanely raised meat is morally wrong. The goal of this presentation is to revise this argument. This argument is based on the presupposition that killing humanely raised puppies for the sake of enjoying the taste of chocolate is morally equivalent to consuming humanely raised meat. But this presupposition faces a problem: what those who consume humanely raised meat do is neither kill the animals themselves nor pay someone else to do so, but rather pay someone else who pays someone else who pays someone else…to do so. Thus, it is at least not clear that the presupposition in question is true. Therefore, Spelman’s argument is unconvincing at least as such. But then, what modification would make his argument avoid this problem? I propose to modify the conclusion of his argument from the one which focuses on consuming humanely raised meat to the one which focuses on producing humanely raised meat. Under this modification, Spelman’s argument will be able to avoid the problem that I pointed out. Furthermore, this argument also has advantages over existing arguments for a similar conclusion on the morality of humane farming. For example, although some of these existing arguments appeal to some systematic moral framework such as utilitarianism, animal rights theory, or Rawlsian contractualism, these frameworks are highly controversial. In contrast, Spelman’s modified argument does not appeal to any systematic moral framework. Thus, his modified argument (1) can avoid the problem that his original argument faces and (2) has advantages over the existing argument for a similar conclusion. My objective in this presentation is to show this.
Reference in this summary Spelman, J. 2020. Against Eating Humanely Raised Meat: Revisiting Fred’s Basement. Journal of Animal Ethics 10: 177-191.