ABSTRACT What is to be done when parents disagree about whether to raise their children as vegans? Three positions have recently emerged. Marcus William Hunt has argued that parents should seek a compromise. I have argued that there should be no compromise on animal rights, but there may be room for compromise over some ‘unusual’ sources of non-vegan, but animal-rights-respecting, food. Carlo Alvaro has argued that both Hunt and I are wrong; veganism is like religion, and there should be no (...) compromise on religion, meaning there should be no compromise on veganism. This means that even my minimal-compromise approach should be rejected. This paper critiques Alvaro’s zero-compromise veganism, demonstrating that his case against Hunt’s position is undermotivated, and his case against my position rests upon misunderstandings. If vegans wish to reject Hunt’s pro-compromise position, they should favour a rightist approach, not Alvaro’s zero-compromise approach. (shrink)

There is increasing research on the effects of industrial livestock production on the environment and human health, but less on the effects this has on animal welfare and ecological justice. The concept of ecological justice as a tool for achieving sustainability is gaining traction in the legal world. Klaus Bosselman defines ecological justice as consisting of three elements: intragenerational justice, intergenerational justice, and interspecies justice. While the first two have been extensively discussed, interspecies justice has received less attention. It is (...) argued that the neglect of interspecies justice in the practice of industrial livestock production leads to both intragenerational and intergenerational injustices. The article focuses primarily on an animal welfare perspective, addressing the extreme harm and oppression of animals entailed by their commoditization for industrial food production. The destructive impact of this mode of food production on environmental resources and its massive contributions to climate change also lead to the impoverishment of the food, environmental, social, and economic health of present and future generations. The article describes the legal mechanisms that have permitted, and indeed encouraged, the move to industrial livestock production, and suggests changes that could reduce the three kinds of ecological injustices which industrial livestock production produces. (shrink)

This article is concerned with choices that parents or guardians make about the food they give to their children. Those with primary responsibility for the care of young children determine the set of foods that their children eat and have a significant impact on children’s subsequent dietary choices, both in later childhood and in adulthood. I argue that parents have a morally significant reason not to feed meat to their children, which stems from their fiduciary responsibility for the child’s moral (...) development. This should, at a minimum, be factored into parental decisions about their children’s diet. In the absence of compelling countervailing reasons, it will mean that parents should not, in an all-things-considered sense, feed meat to their children. This claim does not rely upon the obviously contentious claim that it is morally wrong to eat meat. Instead, the fact that children, when adults, may reasonably themselves come to believe that consuming meat is wrong gives parents morally compelling reasons to avoid acting in ways which may have the predictable consequence of corrupting the moral character of those for whom they are responsible. (shrink)