ABSTRACT
Animal protection theory has long been thought to condemn meat eating. A recent family of arguments in the animal ethics literature, however, disputes this familiar view and argues that animal protection arguments are compatible with various forms of meat eating. A natural question this philosophy gives rise to is whether there could be an animal protection rationale for eating freegan meat, or meat that is free. Lamey presents two arguments for the view that animal protection rules out freegan meat consumption. The first notes the likelihood that the freegan consumption of animal flesh will likely involve animal flesh conventionally regarded as edible (chicken, pork, beef, etc.), but not other types of flesh, such as that of mice or dogs. As such, freeganism is likely to be rooted in speciesism or to run afoul of a justified anti-cannibalism norm. In addition, when the meat in question is the product of animal agriculture, consuming it will amount to a form of complicity in the industry’s wrongdoing, as the rationale for the animal’s slaughter will be retroactively endorsed. Either of these two considerations taken by itself will suffice to generate a presumption against freegan meat consumption.
