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The day may come when the rest of animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny ... A full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even [a] month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? Nor, Can they talk? But, Can they suffer?
--Jeremy Bentham, Principles of Morals and Legislation
For most people on this planet eating meat is a pleasure. Increasingly, however, it is becoming a guilty pleasure.1Against the enjoyments of biting into a juicy hamburger, savoring smoky barbecue, or snacking on kung pao chicken must be set burdens inflicted on the raw materials that go into these food products: living, breathing, sensing organisms. Hundreds of millions of chickens, steers, pigs, sheep, fish and other animals are killed each year in order to satisfy Americans' taste for meat. On a global basis the total is much multiplied. Even "humane" slaughter involves some measure of distress to beasts up and down the evolutionary chain, and the conditions under which they are raised often add to the costs they bear. How to cumulate that suffering is an unsolved problem of comparative psychics, but it can hardly be denied that these millions of episodes of pain and death constitute a morally considerable datum.2The question may well be asked: Is it not shamefully self-indulgent to set against this toll to nonhuman animals the pleasures of dining on flesh?
Except perhaps for children being force-fed their dinner, meat eating is indeed an indulgence. Whether or not it is a shameful one demands inspection. Section I argues that dining should not be understood merely as an occasion for taking in necessary nutrients but rather as normatively rich. Culinary practices are a not inconsiderable component of living well. Section II extends the discussion to the role of meat within dining and contends that there is strong presumptive evidence that it is a major enhancement, one that makes good lives go better. Section III is the...