The Ethics of Care and Humane Meat: Why Care Is Not Ambiguous About “Humane” Meat

and universal approaches, such as utilitarian and rights-based arguments, may be more effective when addressing this particular issue. Endowing animals with certain rights and reducing animal suffering are important moral initiatives and may play a crucial role in changing the world for animals. So, I am not suggesting that care ought to replace these justice-based approaches. Indeed, much ink has been spilled on the useful ways care can complement (not as a deferential adjunct but as a critical partner) other moral frameworks, and I am sympathetic to those arguments. My point here is to suggest that the ethics of care can govern our thinking about this complex issue without depending upon abstract concepts. There is no need to put forth some mysterious metaphysical property (e.g., animal rights) or appeal to an abstract universal concept (e.g., the greatest happiness principle) because the issue before us can also be critically examined by focusing on the nature of our relationship with dependent others and our special responsibility toward them as genuine care givers. If bringing animals into existence when their ultimate fate is slaughter runs counter to what it means to bestow care in an attentive, responsive, respectful, and trusting manner, then does my argument defend a form of caring that is too restrictive? After all, the only reason farm animals exist is because they will be slaughtered and consumed, so cows, pigs, and chickens may virtually go extinct if we remain committed to bringing animals into existence only under the moral pretense that we have an obligation to care for them in this way. Is it not better, my critic asks, to exist and be cared for in a compromised manner than not to exist in the first place? The sort of care advocated here may not be as radical as one might suspect, especially when we consider that such an understanding of care is already in place when it concerns other dependent animals. Not bringing additional cats and dogs into existence is usually regarded as morally responsible and an act of care. To act otherwise, to not spay or neuter them, is to subject future cats and dogs to a high probability of suffering and premature death given the insufficient homes available to them. My argument seems to coincide with this widely held belief. Furthermore, fulfilling the aims of care would not necessarily result in the extinction of farm animals. Caregivers can and do raise cattle for show, pigs as pets, and chickens in their backyards as a hobby while still meeting the basic aims of care. A third worry is whether the ethic of care here represents a distinct moral theory. After all, my analysis in the first half of the argument seems to be grounded on a utilitarian model while the second portion of the argument appears to rehearse key elements of virtue theory. Have we not simply swept Ethics of Care and Humane Meat 275