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There is an ongoing debate around morality of food habit. Of this debate I have only heard one side, the side of the moral vegans. Bentham, Singer and others propose veganism based on utilitarian principles. There is an abolisionist view as well. However, I have, personally, never seen any substantial philosophical rebuttal to the claims made by P Singer in his book Animal Liberation. Is there any good rebuttal/criticisms based on moral philosophy (rather than other arguments like health, economy etc) to the works of P Singer? Is there any good source to learn about this debate?

fogof mylife
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  • Wikipedia lists [arguments against vegetarianism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_eating_meat#Criticisms_and_responses). For a more academic take see [Mancilla's survey Veganism](https://philarchive.org/archive/MANV-2v2). – Conifold Sep 21 '20 at 21:25
  • Why the downvote? Can someone tell me what the problem is with the question so that I can ask better question next time? – fogof mylife Sep 22 '20 at 10:49
  • Not sure, I upvoted. Judging by the close vote they did not think the question was on-topic. – Conifold Sep 22 '20 at 17:44
  • @Conifold I see. But I don't understand: a question regarding an ethical debate is off-topic? I thought 'Ethics' was on-topic! Maybe moderators can tell me why the question is not good enough. I generally ask in Physics Stack Exchange and I am new to this community, so not sure yet what type of question people tolerate here. – fogof mylife Sep 23 '20 at 04:34
  • Don't read too much into it. The question refers to an existing academic debate, brings up specific names and asks for references, so it certainly fulfills formal criteria. But people often vote intuitively and moderators have no control over it, voting isn't policed. Perhaps they felt that "is there any good rebuttal at all" was too dismissive, or they thought that it was too broad because no concrete argument was singled out and it is easy enough to google up general information on pro and contra, or... – Conifold Sep 23 '20 at 04:42
  • I'll upvote the question but mention that it sort of asks four questions instead of one. – Kristian Berry Sep 23 '20 at 05:42
  • Needs more focus 1 I upvoted, and didn't vote to close, but it could use sharpening. Meets the crterion: "This question currently includes multiple questions in one. It should focus on one problem only" for closure – J D Sep 23 '20 at 20:26
  • @JD I have edited the question and removed all other additional questions focusing just on P Singer's work. – fogof mylife Sep 24 '20 at 04:33
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    I think it's an excellent question. I have read some Singer, and I myself would be interested. I find his metric of degree of consciousness compelling despite my love of bacon. I would love to not be inconsistent. I'm going to shake the branches of SE Philosophy and see if anything falls out that addresses. – J D Sep 24 '20 at 15:30
  • Is this question personal interest or tied to a due date? – J D Sep 24 '20 at 15:41
  • Personal interest only! But wouldn't mind a quick resolution in any case :P ! – fogof mylife Sep 24 '20 at 15:47
  • I know i'm not supposed to recommend youtube videos, but their is a good debate between CosmicSkeptic and Matt Dillahunty that goes in depth on this topic. Veganism has the burden of proof to claim someone should not eat meat. From what I've read, many who look into the meat industry find veganism morally superior, but humans still tend to discriminate across species. I would be interested in the philosophical argument for veganism which tends to get drowned out by the problems within the modern meat industry. ..It is possible we will create lab meat and look back on how barbaric we were! – Noah Sep 24 '20 at 23:54
  • @Noah This is very late, but might I ask why you think that the burden of proof lies on vegans to demonstrate that their moral claim is correct? It is certainly true that the status quo in the world right now is to eat meat, but (at least to me) that shouldn't imply a burden of proof. In fact, I would argue that, *a priori*, it would seem unreasonable to kill and consume another sentient being when it's unnecessary. That would in turn seem to imply that the burden of proof lies on meat eaters to justify the positive action of participating in a system that does that killing. – EE18 Dec 01 '20 at 20:46
  • it is wrong to say not killing is a priori knowledge, it is a posteriori. We dont kill because we dont want to be killed, it is mutually beneficial. (..If we say that killing is a priori, this would [i believe, and i might be wrong] lead to a god claim to reinforce this statement, which I would firmly disagree with.) I don't see how this could be a factual claim rather than morally superior.. Like I said above, the video goes more in depth on this than I could. I believe that veganism is morally superior – Noah Dec 02 '20 at 05:44

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