A Critique of Moral Vegetarianism

V EGETARIANISM is an old and respectable doctrine, and its popularity seems to be growing.' This would be of little interest to moral philosophers except for one fact, namely that some people advocate vegetarianism on moral grounds. Indeed, two well-known moral and social philosophers, Robert Nozick and Peter Singer, have recently advocated not eating meat on moral grounds.2 One job of a moral philosophy should be to evaluate vegetarianism as a moral position, a position P will call moral vegetarianism. Unfortunately, there has been little critical evaluation of moral vegetarianism in the philosophicai iiterature. Most morai philosophers have not been concerned with the problem, and those who have, e .g . , Nozick, have made little attempt to analyze and evaluate the position. As a result, important problems implicit in the moral vegetarian's position have gone unnoticed, and unsound arguments are still widely accepted. In this paper, I will critically examine moral vegetarianism. My examination will not be complete, of course. Some of the arguments I will present are not worked out in detail, and no detailed criticisms of any one provegetarian argument will be given. All the major provegetarian arguments I know will be critically considered, however. My examination will be divided into two parts. First, I will raise some questions that usually are not asked, let alone answered, by moral vegetarians. These questions will have the effect of forcing the moral vegetarian to come to grips with some ambiguities and unclarities in his position. Second, I will consider critically some of the major arguments given for moral vegetarianism.