Cultured Meat as a Transitional Step Towards Interspecies Justice?

Moral Philosophy and Politics (forthcoming)
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Abstract

For some, cultured animal products ought to be celebrated for the potential they offer to replace factory farming. Others argue that, for the same reason, there is a duty to support their production and consumption. This paper argues that the ethical status of cultured animal products ought to be assessed not just in comparison with factory farming, but also in terms of its potential to bring about interspecies justice. The claim is made that the attitudes embodied within cultured animal products show a lack of proper respect for nonhuman animals and are at odds with those required by justice. Although cultured animal products have the potential to greatly reduce harms done to nonhuman animals, this paper argues that their adoption ought to nevertheless be regarded with some regret. Using a Rawlsian framework for assessing transitional steps towards justice, the paper shows that, whilst the adoption of cultured animal products may be permissible, the case for regarding it as a duty is much weaker. For cultured meats to be permissible, it must first be shown that alternatives that respect the value of nonhuman animals as ends-in-themselves do not exist.

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Steve Cooke
University of Leicester

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References found in this work

The Law of Peoples.John Rawls - 1999 - Philosophical Quarterly 51 (203):246-253.
Ideal and nonideal theory.A. John Simmons - 2010 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 38 (1):5-36.
Path dependence in historical sociology.James Mahoney - 2000 - Theory and Society 29 (4):507-548.
The Ethics of Producing In Vitro Meat.G. Owen Schaefer & Julian Savulescu - 2014 - Journal of Applied Philosophy 31 (2):188-202.

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