Duty and the Beast: Should We Eat Meat in the Name of Animal Rights?

Description

The moral status of animals is a subject of controversy both within and beyond academic philosophy, especially regarding the question of whether and when it is ethical to eat meat. A commitment to animal rights and related notions of animal protection is often thought to entail a plant-based diet, but recent philosophical work challenges this view by arguing that, even if animals warrant a high degree of moral standing, we are permitted - or even obliged - to eat meat. Andy Lamey provides critical analysis of past and present dialogues surrounding animal rights, discussing topics including plant agriculture, animal cognition, and in vitro meat. He documents the trend toward a new kind of omnivorism that justifies meat-eating within a framework of animal protection, and evaluates for the first time which forms of this new omnivorism can be ethically justified, providing crucial guidance for philosophers as well as researchers in culture and agriculture.

Andy Lamey is Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Frontier Justice: The Global Refugee Crisis and What to Do about It (2011).

'An important contribution worthy of close study.' Christopher Bobier, Metapsychology '... rigorously researched and argued ...' M. A. Betz, Choice 'Provides us with a far better appreciation of the challenges to which vegetarians and vegans must respond. ... Duty and the Beast is a very good book published at a very opportune time. Lamey's expositions are pointed and detailed, and many of his suggestions are innovative and persuasive.' Mark Bernstein, Journal of Animal Ethics 'Lamey's book is a highly sophisticated, yet lucid and innovative, philosophical investigation on how non-human animals ought to be treated. Those who appreciate philosophical thought experiments and/or science-informed discussions on ethics will find Lamey's work essential reading.' Markku Oksanen, Environmental Values