ABSTRACT
Is it morally permissible for people like us—denizens of the affluent Western world—to purchase or eat meat? Conscientious omnivores believe so, provided that the meat is not factory farmed (or otherwise produced by treating animals cruelly). Moral vegetarians take a more hard-line approach, maintaining that people like us in our circumstances ought not to purchase or eat meat at all because doing so would be wrong. I find myself conflicted about which of these positions to accept. I believe that, at the very least, we should be conscientious omnivores. But I am unsure whether, having accepted conscientious omnivorism, there are principled reasons not to take the further step of embracing moral vegetarianism full stop. My project in this chapter is to explore this issue.1
