Animal Rights, Animal Wrongs:

The Morality, Politics, and Aesthetics of Meat

For many, eating meat is as natural as breathing. Meat is part of our diet, our cuisine, our culture. Yet since the 1970's, a growing chorus of voices have sung a vegetarian hymn.

This course, taught by an ambivalent meat eater, will investigate the ethical issues surrounding the eating of meat. Do we "need" meat? Are there ethical differences between eating one meat or another? What are some of the objections to eating meat and what replies are possible?

To stimulate discussion you will read works by, among others, Peter Singer and Tom Reagan, the two main "founders" of the Animal Rights movement. As you consider various philosophical and ethical positions on the subject, you will take a closer look at issues such as suffering (e.g. does animal suffering matter?) environmental and social costs (e.g. factory farming and the McDonaldization of the restaurant industry), and aesthetics (e.g. what are the connections among gustation, culture, and morality?).

No animals will be harmed in the making of this class.

NOTE: A reading is due before the first class. Get it here.

Summer 2003

Meeman Center for Lifelong Learning

901-843-3965

Dr. David L. Hildebrand

Class1 6/8/03 3-5 pm	Class2 6/9/03 3-5 pm	Class3 6/10/03 3-5 pm	Class4 6/11/03 3-5 pm
Introduction to course	Ethics 1: Animals and Suffering	Ethics 2: Environmental and Social Costs	Aesthetics : Taste, Culture, and Values
Introduction to philosophy, Issues in play (Discussion of Time magazine article.)	Animals and Our Attitudes Towards their Suffering. Some of the objections to eating meat are based on suffering. Are there ethical differences between eating one meat or another? Do shrimp feel pain the way pigs do? Does animal suffering matter? Does it matter enough?	Environmental and Social Costs. Other objections to meat eating are connected with the environmental and social costs to society. What are some of the costs to having a meat-centered diet? For example, how does the American institution of fast-food factor in here? Is it every American's "right" to be obese if they so choose? When we dedicate resources to producing meat, what other alternatives go unexplored?	Aesthetics of Taste. Many people eat meat because of the taste, and we should not underestimate the force that aesthetic values have in shaping our morality. In other words, perhaps we "need" meat after all, but this is a need based not on physiology, but on cultural and aesthetic priorities. We'll spend some time exploring the philosopical connection between gustation, culture, and morality.
Main Readings: "Should We All Be Vegetarians?" (Time, online, get it here)	Readings: Singer Regan Midgeley	Readings: Schlosser	Readings: Telfer