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Opportunistic Carnivorism
Author(s) -
Almeida Michael J.,
Bernstein Mark H.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5930.00154
Subject(s) - consumption (sociology) , purchasing , position (finance) , margin (machine learning) , law and economics , environmental ethics , economics , business , sociology , positive economics , philosophy , marketing , social science , finance , machine learning , computer science
Some carnivores defend the position that the opportunistic consumption of meat is morally permissible even under the assumption that it is morally wrong to act in ways that ause unnecessary suffering to sentient beings. Ordering and consuming chicken once a week, they argue, will not increase the numbers of chickens suffering or slaughtered, since the system of purchasing and farming chickens is not sufficiently fine‐tuned to register differences at margin. We argue that, insensitivity of the market notwithstanding, consistent consequentialists are morally prohibited from each additional purchase and consumption of meat.