Category: Philosophy
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Making plant-based the default
I have had lots of opportunities to put catering under the microscope lately, and mostly it’s not been pretty. A colleague and friend elsewhere has been raving about a new menu item that’s been showing up at catered meetings in her workplace: an apparently delicious tempeh sandwich. This item deserves an A+ for being both…
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Navigating “meat-eaters’ fragility” while not losing focus
Last week I talked about what I called “meat-eaters’ fragility” as an obstacle to change. Today I want to say a bit about what to do with this fact about the world we live in. I don’t think it’s surprising that challenging the status quo in a way the involves an ethical argument gets people’s…
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“Meat-eaters’ fragility” as an obstacle to change
A couple of week’s ago I gave a quick overview of my thoughts on meat-eating and the use of animals and animal products more generally as well-entrenched ideologies of privilege. Using “ideology” to mean not just a set of ideas, but a set of firmly entrenched ideas that solidifies relationships of domination and subordination, I…
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Meat-eating as an ideology of privilege
I have mentioned before that meat-eating is an ideology. Here “meat-eating” is really a stand-in for the use and consumption of animal products more generally. As for “ideology,” if you just consult the dictionary you’ll come away thinking of ideology neutrally, as a system of ideas, usually associated with political positions. But I like the…
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Does “vegan for the animals” support moderation as an end-point?
I have blogged a lot about reasons for being vegan. As regular readers are aware, I think “vegan for the animals” is decisive. Given the vast animal suffering and exploitation in factory farming, from which 99% of all animals products originate, and given that the moral balance in causing suffering and death to trillions (yes,…
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On being vegan in a sea of omnivores whom you love
I’ve just finished reading Ed Winters’s book, This Is Vegan Propaganda: And Other Lies the Meat Industry Tells You (Vermillion 2022). It’s a great book with really good info about the impact of animal agriculture (particularly factory farming) on the animals, the planet, and humans’ health (not just the claim that veganism is a nutritionally…
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Vegan catering fail—gluten free pizza, no cheese
I think “Vegan Catering Fail” and “Vegan Catering Win” are going to become blog series because bad vegan catering is just so common and good vegan catering is just so refreshing. I know some people might think I should be happy, grateful even, that there was any option at all that I could eat. But…
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What’s wrong with non-human animal research?
Last week I had the pleasure of being an examiner for a truly brilliant PhD thesis by philosopher, Jess Du Toit, entitled, What Do We Owe the Other Animals in Health-Related Research. It’s a compelling and sustained philosophical analysis for what is wrong with the majority of health-related animal research and what major reforms would…
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Unreflective carnivores, the marginal case argument, and making a difference
I’ve been reading around quite a bit as I prep to write a new paper. When I say “reading around,” I am referring mostly to philosophy papers on topics in food and animal ethics, mostly as they seem relevant to veganism, meat-eating, animal suffering, and possible moral requirements that facts about animal suffering might yield.…
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Should vegans be eating “facsimiles of flesh”?
I just read a paper called “Facsimiles of Flesh“ by philosophers Bob Fischer and Burkay Ozturk that goes against my long-held belief that there is nothing wrong with eating realistic facsimiles of animal products. Indeed, I have even made the case that from a harm reduction perspective these imitators are welcome additions to the vegan…
Vegan Practically 