Question Hello philosophers, there is a vast philosophical literature that defends animal rights and vegetarianism, but the opposite camp doesn't seem to have produced much. What is the equivalent of Singer's "Animal Liberation" in the "meat eating" camp? Or is this a dead subject among philosophers, where those who care write books about the defense of animals, while those who don't simply go ahead and eat their steaks? Thanks in advance for your valuable insight.

Accepted:
October 29, 2009

Comments

I'm not sure that anyone has written the definitive treatise on Animal Enslavement, but you might check out The Animal Rights Debate. In this book, Tom Regan makes the case for animal rights, while Carl Cohen mounts a case against it.

I really don't think there's an equivalent of Animal Liberation on the other side. That's a classic because it's very clear and philosophically acute, very accessible to the public, full of information, and broad in scope. There are books on the other side, but they tend not to have all those virtues. The book that Amy Kind suggests is a good option, though it's mainly about animal experimentation, not meat-eating. Another book on the other side is The Animals Issue, by Peter Carruthers. It's clearly written and some would say acute, but it's primarily oriented to the academic philosopher. It's nowhere near as readable as Animal Liberation and it's not a source for "real world" information about the treatment of animals. Carruthers wouldn't be interested in such things, since he argues animals don't suffer at our hands--they're not even conscious, on his view.

A very accessible and pretty interesting book on the other side by a non-philosopher is Covenant of the Wild: Why Animals Chose Domestication by Stephen Budiansky. If you don't insist on a position diametrically opposed to Singer's, then another book that defends meat eating is The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. Not a philosopher, but a clear thinker with a good grip on the animal ethics literature, he defends consuming meat produced on tiny humane farms, while excoriating modern industrial agriculture.