Puppies, pigs, and people: eating meat and marginal cases

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that those who purchase and consume factory-raised meat are in the same moral position as someone who tortures puppies merely for the pleasure of chocolate. I consider and reject several attempts to show that the puppy torturer’s actions are morally worse than those of the meat eater. I also argue that any attempt to justify the claim that humans have a higher moral status than other animals by appealing to some version of rationality as the morally relevant difference between humans and animals will fail on at least two counts. It will fail to give an adequate answer to the argument from marginal cases, and, more importantly, it will fail to make the case that such a difference is morally relevant to the status of animals as moral patients as opposed to their status as moral agents.