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How would we eat if animals had rights? A standard assumption is that our food systems would be plant-based. But maybe we should reject this assumption. Indeed, this book argues that a future non-vegan food system would be permissible on an animal rights view. It might even be desirable.
In Food, Justice, and Animals: Feeding the World Respectfully, Josh Milburn questions if the vegan food system risks cutting off many people's pursuit of the 'good life', risks exacerbating food injustices, and risks negative outcomes for animals. If so, then maybe non-vegan food systems would be preferable to vegan food systems, if they could respect animal rights.
Could they? The author provides a rigorous analysis of the ethics of farming invertebrates, producing plant-based meats, developing cultivated animal products, and co-working with animals on genuinely humane farms, arguing that these possibilities offer the chance for a food system that is non-vegan, but nonetheless respects animals' rights. He argues that there is a way for us to have our cake, and eat it too, because we can have our cow, and eat her too.
Introduction
1. The trouble with veganism
2. Bugs and bivalves
3. Plant-based meat
4. A defence of cellular agriculture
5. A positive case for cultivated meat
6. Eggs
7. Creating and sustaining just food systems
Conclusion: Having our cow, and eating her too
Bibliography
Josh Milburn is a British philosopher and a Lecturer in Political Philosophy at Loughborough University. He has previously worked at the University of Sheffield, the University of York, and Queen's University (in Canada), before which he studied at Queen's University Belfast and Lancaster University. He is the author of Just Fodder: The Ethics of Feeding Animals (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2022), and the regular host of the animal studies podcast Knowing Animals.
"The exploitation of sentient animals is pervasive within most contemporary livestock production systems. In Food, Justice, and Animals, however, philosopher Josh Milburn intriguingly proposes that many animal products might be used for food or other purposes, whilst still respecting animals' rights. For those who aspire toward lifestyles free of animal exploitation, this is nothing less than paradigm-shifting. This highly readable and engaging book deserves widespread consideration by all who are concerned about the ethics, and consequences of, our modern livestock production systems. And given the severity of the environmental and animal welfare problems they create, this should be all of us."
– Prof. Andrew Knight MANZCVS, DipECAWBM (AWSEL), DipACAW, PhD, FRCVS, PFHEA
