Author: Zach Ferguson
Category: Ethics, Bioethics
Wordcount: 996
More than 100 billion animals are raised and killed each year for their meat, milk and eggs.[1]
Though most people consume these products, many philosophers have argued that it’s usually morally wrong to raise and kill animals for food, and buy and consume animal-based food products.[2]
This essay introduces some of the most influential arguments about ethical vegetarianism and veganism.[3]
1. Raising and Killing Animals
Most farmed animals today are raised using intensive methods that are often called factory farming.[4] Animals are densely confined, unable to move freely or satisfy basic instinctual urges. Their bodies are deformed and intentionally mutilated, and many spend their entire lives sick and in pain.[5] They are then killed long before the end of their natural lifespans: for example, chickens raised for meat can live up to ten years but are usually slaughtered within weeks of hatching.
Some argue that animal agriculture is wrong because it causes extreme, unjustified suffering to billions of creatures.[6] It is sometimes permissible to cause suffering if there is a justifying reason—it is OK to vaccinate my dog, though she suffers from the needle poke, because the immunity benefits her. But the number of farmed animals and total suffering are so great, and any benefits so minor, that many conclude that these practices are unjustified.[7]
Others argue the main problem is rights violations. Animals have some of the same features that grant human beings moral rights. Unlike tables or rocks, we have experiences; we have first-person perspectives on the world, and thoughts, emotions, and interests; life can go better or worse for us; each of us are what’s called “subjects of a life.”[8] Some philosophers argue that these considerations grant humans rights and inherent value that rule out certain kinds of ill treatment, such as killing or manipulating us against our will. If we have these rights, they argue, then many animals do too. If farmed animals have rights, then most farming practices violate those rights. This view offers a response to the claim that some farms treat animals humanely; even if they aren’t suffering, killing them for food, even painlessly, would violate their rights.
Some philosophers highlight the parallels between racist and sexist discrimination—which involve not giving consideration to someone’s interests for morally irrelevant reasons—to argue that animal agriculture is usually wrong.[9] This is a rejection of speciesism: unjustified discrimination based on biological species alone.[10] Furthermore, many people think it would be wrong to mutilate, confine, and slaughter dogs.[11] But pigs are just as smart and sociable as dogs. If it would be wrong to subject dogs to this treatment, then we shouldn’t do it to pigs either: the fact that they are different species is irrelevant.[12]
Lastly, animal farming is a major contributor to climate change and environmental degradation.[13] It is also a primary source of antibiotic resistance and new zoonotic diseases, putting us at risk for future pandemics.[14] It may be wrong to contribute to these problems.[15]
2. Common Objections
One common response to these arguments is that humans need meat to survive. But this isn’t true. It is well established that most people can live healthy lives on plant-based diets.[16] Farming animals isn’t necessary for survival or health in affluent societies.
Another response is that eating animal-based food products is pleasurable. However, that an action causes pleasure does not by itself make it permissible. Eating bacon is a relatively minor pleasure that is unlikely to outweigh the lifetime of suffering the pig endures.[17] Furthermore, eating plant-based foods can also be pleasurable.
Some claim that meat is an important cultural good or part of a traditional way of life. But some traditional practices can be immoral, like slavery or genital mutilation.[18] These objectors would need to show that these human cultural goods are more morally important than the suffering and environmental damage caused by animal farming.
Others claim that eating meat is natural, or that it is OK because animals kill and eat each other in nature. But just because some action is “natural” does not mean it’s not wrong, and just because animals do something doesn’t mean it’s permissible for us to do it. For example, some animals kill and eat their own young.[19]
Some point out that all methods of food production, even crop cultivation, involve harming some animals (for example, field rodents killed by tractors). While that is true, estimates suggest that plant-based food systems would result in far fewer animals harmed overall.[20]
Others argue that it isn’t wrong to eat animals because they are less rational than humans or because they aren’t moral agents. But many humans, including infants and those with severe cognitive disabilities, cannot reason like typical adults or make moral decisions, and it would be wrong to farm them for food.[21]
3. Farming vs Eating
Some philosophers argue that most animal farming is wrong but deny that individuals therefore have an obligation to be vegetarians. They distinguish the morality of producing animal products from the morality of purchasing or consuming them—while producing meat may be wrong, buying or eating meat might not be.[22]
One response to this position is to argue that it is wrong to create economic demand for a wrongfully produced product. If people buy meat, their purchases signal to meat producers that they should increase meat supply, making it more likely that more animals are raised and killed in the future.[23] In reply, critics sometimes argue that one individual becoming vegetarian doesn’t influence producers to raise and kill fewer animals.[24] However, some economic research suggests that meat producers are sensitive even to small changes in consumer demand.[25]
Another response claims it is often wrong to be complicit in or supportive of wrongful practices.[26] By buying meat, we don’t do the wrongful acts ourselves, but we help or encourage others to act wrongly, which might itself be wrong.
4. Conclusion
If arguments for vegetarianism are sound, most people are doing something unethical at nearly every meal. Fortunately, there are many plant-based foods that are delicious, healthy, and affordable.[27]
Notes
[1] See Roser (2023) for estimates of the number of animals killed for food.
[2] “Usually” here refers to ordinary circumstances where adequate plant-based foods are available. These philosophers don’t typically claim, for instance, that it would be wrong for someone who is starving to death to eat meat if it were the only food available.
[3] Vegetarian is a broad term for anyone who doesn’t eat meat. This essay is about people who don’t eat meat for moral reasons rather than for reasons like personal health or cultural heritage. One form of ethical vegetarianism is veganism. In addition to not eating meat, vegans also don’t eat or use other kinds of animal products, like milk, eggs, and leather. Many of the arguments for the immorality of eating meat apply just as strongly or more so to these other products, whose production also involves harming animals. (For example, chick culling is the process of killing the billions of unwanted male chicks produced by the egg industry. Since male chicks don’t lay eggs, they have little economic value and are typically killed the day they are born, usually with a grinder or gas chamber. The FarmForward article “Chick Culling” provides a short summary.)
[4] Estimates suggest that over 99% of animals farmed in the US are raised this way, as are 74% of animals farmed globally. See Ritchie (2023) for a summary. Though not all animals are factory farmed, many traditional farms also engage in practices that some consider inhumane, like unanesthetized branding, castration, and horn removal.
[5] Accounts of inhumane, industry-standard practices are widely available, but see “Animals on Factory Farms” by the Animal Welfare Institute for a short summary.
[6] For further discussion of this type of argument, see “Can They Suffer?”: Bentham on our Obligations to Animals by Daniel Weltman. This type of argument often appeals to a type of ethical theory known as consequential or utilitarianism. See Consequentialism and Utilitarianism by Shane Gronholz for an introduction to these theories.
[7] This argument concerns animals who can suffer, like pigs, cows, and chickens. It might be that some animals without brains or central nervous systems, like bivalves, cannot suffer or feel pain. If an animal cannot suffer or feel pain, this argument suggests that it might not be wrong to farm them. For a discussion of what pain is, see The Philosophy of Pain by Tiina Carita Rosenqvist.
[8] Tom Regan is the most prominent advocate of the position that some animals have moral rights, which he developed in The Case for Animal Rights (1983/2004). Regan argues that any being, of any species, who is a “subject of a life” has a moral right to respectful treatment. Regan’s position is often interpreted as a development of Kant’s ethics, with a broader view of who is an “end in themself”: see Kantian Deontology: Immanuel Kant’s Ethics by Andrew Chapman. For a further introduction to reasoning like Regan’s, see The Moral Status of Animals by Jason Wyckoff. For a more recent Kant-inspired defense of animals, see Korsgaard (2018).
To be a “subject of life” is to be a being with a particular type of mind. For more on animal minds, see Animal Minds by Tiina Carita Rosenqvist.
[9] Peter Singer popularized this argument in the seminal article “All Animals are Equal” (1974) and the opening chapter of Animal Liberation (1975), which has been released in many different updated editions. Since then, scholars of gender and race have written extensively on the similarity and/or differences between these kinds of oppression. See for instance The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J. Adams (1990) and Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters by Aph Ko and Syl Ko (2017).
[10] For further discussion, see Speciesism: Discrimination on the Basis of Species by Dan Lowe. Also see Racism: What Makes Something Racist? by Dan Peterson, What Is Misogyny? by Odelia Zuckerman and Clair Morrissey, and Dehumanization: What is it to Dehumanize People? by Dan Peterson.
[11] Some readers might respond here with the observation that eating dogs is believed to be not wrong in some cultures thinking that means that eating dogs is not wrong in those cultures. This response suggests the person may be appealing to an ethical theory called cultural relativism. For discussion, see Cultural Relativism: Do Cultural Norms Make Actions Right and Wrong? by Nathan Nobis.
[12] Norcross (2004) makes this kind of argument comparing dogs to pigs. Importantly, those persuaded by this line of argument generally think that it would apply to humans as well: if it is wrong to mutilate and slaughter human babies for pleasure, then it is wrong to mutilate and slaughter pigs for pleasure.
[13] See Ritchie (2019, 2021).
[14] See Anomaly (2015) for discussion.
[15] A further type of argument against raising and killing animals for food builds on the concerns mentioned here and argues that kind, caring, and compassionate people—people with morally good character traits or virtues—would not usually support practices like these. For a general introduction to this perspective, see Virtue Ethics by David Merry. For applications to ethical issues concerning animals, see Hursthouse (2006) and Donovan and Adams (2007).
[16] This is now widely accepted by major dietetic associations like the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: See Vesanto et al. (2016). As they note in their review of the scientific and medical literature, “Vegetarians and vegans are at reduced risk of certain health conditions, including ischemic heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, certain types of cancer, and obesity.” For vegans, a well-planned diet will include a vitamin B-12 supplement.
[17] See Engel (2016) for a version of this argument.
[18] On arguments against slavery, and why these arguments are demonstrably bad arguments, see Aristotle’s Defense of Slavery by Dan Lowe.
[19] See Ethics and Evolution by Michael Klenk for further discussion of why it is difficult to settle moral questions by appealing to what is “natural.” Interestingly, moral arguments that appeal to what animals do and don’t do, and what’s “natural” and “unnatural,” arise with other ethical issues: for example, see The Ethics of Homosexuality: Is It Morally Wrong? by Nathan Nobis.
[20] For discussion of this issue, see Fischer and Lamey (2018).
[21] For discussion of further common objections to arguments for vegetarianism, see Lowe (2016) and Nobis (2011).
[22] See Shahar (2021) for this type of argument.
[23] Examples of this kind of argument can be found in Singer (1975), Norcross (2004), Rachels (2011), and Kagan (2011). If correct, this implies people should not buy animal products, but it might not be wrong to eat meat that is free or will be thrown away. For debates about the possible exceptions to generally pro-vegetarian principles, see Abbate and Bobier’s (2023) volume New Omnivorism and Strict Veganism: Critical Perspectives.
[24] This objection is often called the causal inefficacy problem and has received a lot of philosophical attention: e..g, it is discussed in many of the essays in Chignell, Cuneo, and Halteman (2015) and in Shahar (2021). See Budolfson (2019) for a version of this argument applied to the meat industry.
[25] See McMullen & Halteman (2019) and Isaacs et al. (2024) for responses to the claim that individual consumers’ purchases make no difference to what producers do.
[26] McPherson (2015) makes this argument with respect to animal products.
[27] Vegan and vegetarian diets are generally cheaper than those that include meat, especially in higher and upper-middle income countries. See Sprigmann et al. (2021) for price data. For evidence that plant-based cooking can be delicious and accessible, see online food bloggers like Nora Cooks, Rainbow Plant Life, and Pick Up Limes.
References
Abbate, Cheryl, and Christopher Bobier, eds. New Omnivorism and Strict Veganism: Critical Perspectives. Taylor & Francis (2023).
Animal Welfare Institute, “Animals on Factory Farms.”
Adams, Carol, J. The Sexual Politics of Meat. Continuum (1990).
Anomaly, Jonathan. “What’s Wrong with Factory Farming?” Public Health Ethics 8, no. 3 (2015): 246-254.
Budolfson, Mark Bryant. “The Inefficacy Objection to Consequentialism and the Problem with the Expected Consequences Response.” Philosophical Studies 176, no. 7 (2019): 1711-1724.
Chignell, Andrew, Cuneo, Terence, Halteman, Matthew C. (eds), Philosophy Comes to Dinner, Routledge (2015).
Donovan, Josephine, and Adams, Carol. (eds). The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics: A Reader. Columbia University Press (2007).
Engel Jr, Mylan. “The Commonsense Case for Ethical Vegetarianism.” Between the Species 19, no. 1 (2016): 1.
FarmForward, “Chick Culling: What Is It, What Are the Methods & Is It Cruel?”
Fischer, Bob, and Andy Lamey. “Field Deaths in Plant Agriculture.” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 31, no. 4 (2018): 409-428.
Hursthouse, Rosalind. “Applying Virtue Ethics to our Treatment of the Other Animals.” In Welchman, Jennifer (ed), The Practice of Virtue: Classic and Contemporary Readings in Virtue Ethics, Hackett (2006): 136-155.
Isaacs, Yoaav, Adam Lerner, and Jeffrey Sanford Russell. “Counting Your Chickens.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 102, no. 3 (2024): 675-692.
Ko, Aph, and Syl Ko. Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters. Lantern Publishing & Media (2017).
Korsgaard, Christine. Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals. Oxford University Press (2018).
Lowe, Dan. “Common Arguments for the Moral Acceptability of Eating Meat: A Discussion for Students.” Between the Species Vol. 19: Iss. 1 (2016), Article 7.
Nobis, Nathan. “Reasonable Humans and Animals: An Argument for Vegetarianism,” Between the Species Vol. 13: Iss. 8 (2011), Article 4.
McMullen, Steven, and Halteman, Matthew C. “Against Inefficacy Objections: The Real Economic Impact of Individual Consumer Choices on Animal Agriculture.” Food Ethics 2, no. 2 (2019): 93-110.
McPherson, Tristram. “Why I Am a Vegan (and You Should Be One Too).” In Chignell, Andrew, Cuneo, Terence, Halteman, Matthew C. (eds), Philosophy Comes to Dinner, Routledge (2015): 73-91.
Norcross, Alastair. “Puppies, Pigs, and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases.” Philosophical Perspectives 18 (2004): 229-245.
Rachels, Stuart. “Vegetarianism.” In Beauchamp, Tom and Frey, R. G. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics, Oxford University Press (2011): 877-904.
Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. University of California Press, (1983/2004).
Ritchie, Hannah. “How Many Animals Are Factory-Farmed?” At OurWorldinData (2023).
Roser, Max. “How Many Animals Get Slaughtered Every Day?” At OurWorldinData (2023).
Shahar, Dan C. Why It’s OK to Eat Meat. Routledge (2021).
Singer, Peter. “All Animals Are Equal.” Philosophic Exchange 5, no. 1 (1974).
Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals. Harper Collins (1975).
Springmann, Marco, Michael A. Clark, Mike Rayner, Peter Scarborough, and Patrick Webb. “The Global and Regional Costs of Healthy and Sustainable Dietary Patterns: a Modelling Study.” The Lancet Planetary Health 5, no. 11 (2021): e797-e807.
Vesanto, Melina; Craig, Winston and Levin, Susan. “Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Vegetarian Diets.” Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics 116, no. 12 (2016): 1970-1980.
Related Essays
“Can They Suffer?”: Bentham on our Obligations to Animals by Daniel Weltman
Speciesism: Discrimination on the Basis of Species by Dan Lowe
The Moral Status of Animals by Jason Wyckoff
Animal Minds by Tiina Carita Rosenqvist
Theories of Moral Considerability: Who and What Matters Morally? by Jonathan Spelman
Ethics and Animal Research by Paul Bali
Consequentialism and Utilitarianism by Shane Gronholz
Kantian Deontology: Immanuel Kant’s Ethics by Andrew Chapman
The Philosophy of Pain by Tiina Carita Rosenqvist
Aristotle’s Defense of Slavery by Dan Lowe
Racism: What Makes Something Racist? by Dan Peterson
What Is Misogyny? by Odelia Zuckerman and Clair Morrissey
Dehumanization: What is it to Dehumanize People? by Dan Peterson.
Cultural Relativism: Do Cultural Norms Make Actions Right and Wrong? by Nathan Nobis
Ethics and Evolution by Michael Klenk
The Ethics of Homosexuality: Is It Morally Wrong? by Nathan Nobis
Virtue Ethics by David Merry
About the Author
Zach Ferguson is a philosophy PhD candidate at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a 2026 recipient of the Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship. His primary research program is focused on ethical questions involving nonhuman animals, but has broad research and teaching interests in ethics and normative philosophy generally. His work has been published in journals such as Ergo, Analysis, and Synthese, among others. fergusonphilosophy.com
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