Philosophical Vegan Forum

I wanted to recommend to you all a philosophy professor who I recently discovered. His name is Andy Lamey. I first came across his work in an academic journal article he co-wrote concerning Field Deaths in Plant Agriculture, found here: http://andylamey.com/download/47/. There is a shorter popular summary of the article found here: http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/201 ... riculture/).

After reading this article, I came to realize that he is one of the leading academics trying to address the “new omnivorism” arguments directed at veganism. His latest book is quite good, (https://www.amazon.com/Duty-Beast-Shoul ... 1107160073) and I found it fairly convincing. There is a summarized version of his arguments found here: https://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/p ... 289&cn=135.

I also read the newest book by philosophy professor Bob Fischer (https://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Eating-An ... 0367230046) who is the co-author of the Field Death article, although his conclusions are bit more complicated and troubling. He argues we’re not obligated to be vegan, although he does conclude that it’s a good thing to do. If people find it hard to be vegan, he encourages eating insects and bivalves and roadkill, and in some instances hunting and high welfare animals. I’m not convinced by all of his arguments. They are played out in practice within more popular literature by history professor James McWilliams (https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Promiscuo ... 1619027356).

Has anyone read these books or familiar with these arguments?

Thanks for sharing, the summary article link wasn't working for me before but I found it through google. I thought maybe it would contain more info, but I think I've seen all of these claims before. It's a good point that we don't have a lot of information, but I think they could have highlighted the philosophical ramifications of limited information. If on one hand you don't know and on the other hand there is KNOWN harm, the choice should be pretty clear to avoid the known harm.

As to Bob Fischer's claim that " we’re not obligated to be vegan", what *does* he think we're obligated to do and why?
There's a good argument to be made that the distinction between obligation and good is meaningless or arbitrary, but how does he substantiate *anything* being obligatory in the first place? Some kind of social contract argument or something? This is the same issue with Matt Dillahunty's claims.

I think Bob Fischer primarily makes an economic argument for why he doesn't think everyone has to be vegan, saying that he isn't convinced our personal consumer habits actually affect the supply/demand aspect in any meaningful way. Collective and institutional action is what matters.

Also, if anyone is interested, there was a very enlightening discussion from a group of philosophers recently posted to https://www.cato-unbound.org/issues/feb ... we-animals. Most of it covers pretty basic vegan related philosophy, but I found the final post by Michael Huemer especially interesting, regarding eating meat as a human rights violation (especially related to coronavirus). Huemer also has a good short book called "Dialogues on Ethical Vegetarianism" which I have found quite helpful.