Barnhill Anne, Bernstein Justin, Faden Ruth, McLaren Rebecca, Rieder Travis N, Fanzo Jessica
Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD USA.
Department of Philosophy, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Food Ethics. 2022;7(2):11. doi: 10.1007/s41055-022-00100-8. Epub 2022 Jun 17.
This paper argues that individuals in many high-income countries typically have moral reasons to limit their beef consumption and consume plant-based protein instead, given the negative effects of beef production and consumption. Beef production is a significant source of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts, high levels of beef consumption are associated with health risks, and some cattle production systems raise animal welfare concerns. These negative effects matter, from a variety of moral perspectives, and give us collective moral reasons to reduce beef production and consumption. But, as some ethicists have argued, we cannot draw a straight line from the ethics of production to the ethics of consumption: even if a production system is morally impermissible, this does not mean that any given individual has moral reasons to stop consuming the products of that system, given how miniscule one individual's contributions are. This paper considers how to connect those dots. We consider three distinct lines of argument in support of the conclusion that individuals have moral reasons to limit their beef consumption and shift to plant-based protein, and we consider objections to each argument. This argument applies to individuals in high beef-consuming and high greenhouse gas-emitting high-income countries, though we make this argument with a specific focus on the United States.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s41055-022-00100-8.
本文认为，鉴于牛肉生产和消费的负面影响，许多高收入国家的个人通常有道德理由限制牛肉消费，转而食用植物性蛋白质。牛肉生产是农业温室气体排放和其他环境影响的重要来源，高牛肉消费量与健康风险相关，一些养牛生产系统引发了动物福利问题。从各种道德角度来看，这些负面影响都很重要，为我们提供了减少牛肉生产和消费的集体道德理由。但是，正如一些伦理学家所指出的，我们不能从生产伦理直接推导到消费伦理：即使一种生产系统在道德上是不可接受的，鉴于个人的贡献微不足道，这并不意味着任何特定个人都有道德理由停止消费该系统的产品。本文探讨了如何将这些点联系起来。我们考虑了三条不同的论证思路，以支持个人有道德理由限制牛肉消费并转向植物性蛋白质的结论，并考虑了对每个论证的反对意见。这一论证适用于牛肉消费高和温室气体排放高的高收入国家的个人，尽管我们在论证时特别关注美国。
在线版本包含可在10.1007/s41055-022-00100-8获取的补充材料。
