Chapter 4 - The Dinner of Double Effect

Summary

Many recent defenses of meat eating turn on the death of animals in plant agriculture. Despite their differences, a common feature of all such proposals is that they rank dietary options according to the overall number of animal deaths each diet requires. If eating a diet with free-range meat involves fewer overall animal deaths than a traditional plant-based vegan diet, then that is taken to demonstrate the immorality of traditional veganism. A problem for this family of views is their failure to note the ethical relevance of the doctrine of double effect (DDE). If the DDE is applicable to agricultural ethics then it raises the possibility that it remains immoral to follow a diet based on the deliberate killing of animals, even if doing so did result in fewer animal deaths than a plant-based diet. A challenge of bringing the DDE to bear on any debate involving animals is that the most sophisticated contemporary versions of the DDE employ a rationale that makes the DDE inapplicable to entities that are not persons. I outline a new version of the DDE that is applicable to our dealings with merely sentient animals and apply it to harms done to animals in agriculture.