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Animal Rights | Munk Debates

SEASON TWO - EPISODE #62

Animal Rights

Be it resolved, animals don't belong on our plates.

Guests
Peter Singer
Joel Salatin
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About this episode

Vegetarianism, Veganism, Pescatarianism, Flexitarianism. Never before have there been so many ways to define how and what we eat. But are these choices simply a matter of personal taste, or do they reflect a broader ethical conundrum about what we put in our bodies? Ethicists, animal rights activists, and environmentalists increasingly argue that what we eat constitutes a moral choice. Consuming animals or animal products is inherently unethical, depriving living, sentient beings from living full, productive, and happy lives. Choosing to eat meat is not merely a preference, but an ethically dubious choice that ignores the health of the planet and the autonomy of other living things. The only course is to eliminate animals from our diet entirely.

But others argue that the consumption of meat and animal products is not inherently wrong. Animals can be raised humanely and brought to our plates with greater attention to their wellbeing. Humans have been consuming animal products for millennia, and raising livestock is part of the fabric of our shared history and culture. Steps must be taken to minimize the impact of animal agriculture on the environment, and animals must be treated with respect and care. But eliminating meat and dairy from our diets altogether is not the solution.

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Guests

Peter Singer

“We need to start thinking of animals as beings with whom we share the planet and who have their own lives to lead without just being a means to our ends."

Peter Singer

“We need to start thinking of animals as beings with whom we share the planet and who have their own lives to lead without just being a means to our ends."

Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He is known in particular for his book Animal Liberation (1975), in which he argues in favour of veganism, and his essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", in which he argues in favour of donating to help the global poor. For most of his career, he was a preference utilitarian, but he stated in The Point of View of the Universe (2014), coauthored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, that he had become a hedonistic utilitarian.

On two occasions, Singer served as chair of the philosophy department at Monash University, where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics. In 1996 he stood unsuccessfully as a Greens candidate for the Australian Senate. In 2004 Singer was recognised as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies. In 2005, The Sydney Morning Herald placed him among Australia's ten most influential public intellectuals. Singer is a co-founder of Animals Australia and the founder of The Life You Can Save.

Joel Salatin

“You cannot eat without killing something. Something always has to die in order for you to eat.”

Joel Salatin

“You cannot eat without killing something. Something always has to die in order for you to eat.”

Joel Salatin co-owns, with his family, Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia. Featured in the New York Times bestseller Omnivore’s Dilemma and award-winning documentary Food Inc., the farm services more than 5,000 families, 50 restaurants, 10 retail outlets, and a farmers’ market with salad bar beef, pig aerator pork, pastured poultry, and forestry products. When he’s not on the road speaking, he’s at home on the farm, keeping the calluses on his hands and dirt under his fingernails, mentoring young people, inspiring visitors, and promoting local, regenerative food and farming systems.

Salatin is the editor of The Stockman Grass Farmer, granddaddy catalyst for the grass farming movement. He writes the Pitchfork Pulpit column for Mother Earth News, as well as numerous guest articles for ACRES USA and other publications. A frequent guest on radio programs and podcasts targeting preppers, homesteaders, and foodies, Salatin’s practical, can-do solutions tied to passionate soliloquies for sustainability offer everyone food for thought and plans for action.

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