The Ethics of Imitation in Meat Alternatives (original) (raw)
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Making a Mockery of Meat: Troubling Texture and the Failings of the “Flesh”
Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture, 2017
This article considers the fraught nature of meat analogs, colloquially known as "mock meats" (such as Tofurky, facon, Veat, soysage, and so on). Meat analogs offer up a semiotic and ethical provocation-an uneasy and unsettling one for some, a comforting and nostalgic one for others-through their aspiration to " meatiness." As these parodic foodstuffs in their naming make apparent, mock meats are unable to escape what Derrida refers to as the West's privileging of " carno-phallogocentrism," where in dietary terms meat remains the preferred point of reference. Drawing upon media stories, advertising, and promotional material from mock meat manufacturers, this article examines the ambivalence and signifying fuzziness of meat analogs in relation to larger debates about consumption and food ethics.
Emerging Profiles for Cultured Meat; Ethics through and as Design
The development of cultured meat has gained urgency through the increasing problems associated with meat, but what it might become is still open in many respects. In existing debates, two main moral profiles can be distinguished. Vegetarians and vegans who embrace cultured meat emphasize how it could contribute to the diminishment of animal suffering and exploitation, while in a more mainstream profile cultured meat helps to keep meat eating sustainable and affordable. In this paper we argue that these profiles do not exhaust the options and that (gut) feelings as well as imagination are needed to explore possible future options. On the basis of workshops, we present a third moral profile, “the pig in the backyard”. Here cultured meat is imagined as an element of a hybrid community of humans and animals that would allow for both the consumption of animal protein and meaningful relations with domestic (farm) animals. Experience in the workshops and elsewhere also illustrates that thinking about cultured meat inspires new thoughts on “normal” meat. In short, the idea of cultured meat opens up new search space in various ways. We suggest that ethics can take an active part in these searches, by fostering a process that integrates (gut) feelings, imagination and rational thought and that expands the range of our moral identities.
The Meat Paradox, Omnivore's Akrasia, and Animal Ethics
Animals, 2019
Simple Summary: Psychologists have used the term "meat paradox" to explain why people may emphasize their concern for animal welfare and yet eat meat, the production of which has caused suffering to nonhuman creatures. This paper explores the meat paradox through the philosophical concept "akrasia". Akrasia refers to a situation, where one believes in a fact or value x, and yet acts against that fact or value. The paper uses the term "omnivore's akrasia" to denote a state where one believes in the value of animal wellbeing and nonetheless consumes products which have caused animal suffering. The claim of the paper is that understanding of the meat paradox can be significantly broadened with the use of philosophical takes on akrasia, which underline notions such as moral reason and virtue. Another claim is that it is through enhancing one's moral ability that both the meat paradox and omnivore's akrasia may be reduced. Specific factors included in such enhancement are introduced and compared with "nudging". In the conflicting era when the meat industry is rapidly growing on a global scale whilst attitudes toward other animals are becoming increasingly positive, exploring the phenomenon of both eating and caring for animals is of clear societal, political, and moral significance. Abstract: Western cultures have witnessed an intriguing phenomenon in recent years: People are both more concerned for animal wellbeing and consume more animal products than ever before. This contradiction has been explored in psychology under the term "meat paradox". However, what has been omitted from the explorations is the age-old philosophical notion of "akrasia", within which one both knows "the good" and acts against it. The paper seeks to address this omission by comparing psychological research on the meat paradox with philosophy of akrasia. Applying Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Spinoza, I investigate the underlying factors of and solutions to what is here called "omnivore's akrasia". Whilst contemporary research on the meat paradox focuses on various descriptive cognitive errors (such as cognitive dissonance), philosophy of akrasia has tended to focus more prescriptively on moral reason and virtue. After discussing "nudging" as an implication of the descriptive approach, the paper supports the prescriptive perspective and "the cultivation argument". The claim is that contemporary research on the contradictions concerning attitudes toward other animals would greatly benefit from paying more attention to the value-laden mental factors underlying moral agency.
Ethics of meat alternatives (Meat and Meat Replacements, Elsevier, 2022)
Meat and Meat Replacements
Meat production involves a range of harms to animals and the environment. There is thus a good case to move away from meat production in our food system. However, people value meat, and this gives us both principled and pragmatic reasons to pursue food systems without the animal farming of today's food system, but which still incorporate meat (or meat-like products). However, meat alternatives also raise ethical questions. After exploring the case for adopting meat alternatives (relative to both a system incorporating slaughter-based meat and a fully plant-based system), this chapter reviews some of the ethical challenges raised by three possible meat alternatives: Plant-based meat, cultivated meat, and insects.
Our Discourse of Meat: What Are We Really Doing?
2008
In this essay I will look at the symbolism that meat holds within our ‘modern’ ‘Western’ society. I will begin by briefly introducing the study of food in general within the social sciences, setting a framework of reference for the exploration of meat specifically. In examining meat I will firstly set the context by turning to the global livestock sector and its relationship with the environment, before probing meat’s physical properties and their ensuing symbolism, which, as we will see, is the basic foundation for meat’s high culinary and dietetic value in our culture. I will then continue to investigate meat’s symbolism by asking what place, if any, may meat hold within our wider cultural cosmology, within our systems of social and moral ideas, before drawing some conclusions.
Meat provocation – can animal ethics actually rest on rational arguments?
Justice and food security in a changing climate, 2021
Justice and food security in a changing climate 5 Acknowledgements Both the planning of EurSafe2021 and the origin of this book were profoundly influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic, and we are extremely pleased to see that so many contributions still arrived. We would like to thank all authors for sharing their work and insights and all reviewers for their muchappreciated expertise on the vast range of topics. We are grateful for the support and encouragement received from the EurSafe board and Svenja Springer, in preparing this conference despite the challenging circumstances. Our special thanks go to
'Happy Cows', 'Happy Beef': A Critique of the Rationales for Ethical Meat
The ethical food movement signals a significant transformation of cultural consciousness in its recognition of the intimate politics of what we eat and what kind of socio-political systems we sustain. The recent resurgence of economic localization exemplifies a grass roots attempt to undermine the hegemony of transnational corporations and build ecologically and economically sustainable communities. Social justice plays a key role in the guiding philosophies of these movements, and yet, while many ecocritical discourses examine the uncomfortable relationship of anthropocentricism and sustainability, some contemporary texts of the ethical food movement evidence a reluctant embrace of omnivorous eating, while simultaneously indicating a gendered, if ironic, machismo at odds with the principles of ethical eating. An analysis of the rhetoric of three popular nonfiction books that construct a similar narrative of the story of meat—Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Susan Bourette’s Meat, a Love Story, and Scott Gold’s The Shameless Carnivore—reveals an attempt by these authors to naturalize what is essentially an economic and lifestyle activity. Working within a vegetarian ecofeminist framework, though recognizing that multiple compelling philosophical positions exist for considering the ethics of meat eating, this paper intends to argue, not that “ethical” and “omnivorous” are contradictory terms, but rather that a moral ambivalence prevails in these texts despite these authors’ claims to the contrary. In elucidating these authors’ reactions to their own participation in “the omnivore’s dilemma” this paper pinpoints those areas where a resistance to a deeper examination of human-nonhuman relations is in operation.
Food Ethics, 2022
New omnivorism is a term coined by Andy Lamey to refer to arguments that-paradoxically-our duties towards animals require us to eat some animal products. Lamey's claim to have identified a new, distinctive position in food ethics is problematic, however, for some of his interlocutors are not new (e.g., Leslie Stephen in the nineteenth century), not distinctive (e.g., animal welfarists), and not obviously concerned with eating animals (e.g., plant neurobiologists). It is the aim of this paper to bolster Lamey's argument that he has identified a novel, unified, and intriguing position (or set of positions) in animal ethics and the philosophy of food. We distinguish new omnivorism from four other non-vegan positions and then differentiate three versions of new omnivorism based on the kinds of animal products they propose we consume. We conclude by exploring a range of argumentative strategies that could be deployed in response to the new omnivore.