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CRPR External Seminar

Josh Milburn - Animal rights and food: Can we have our cow and eat her too?

A Centre for Rural Policy Research seminar
Speaker(s)Josh Milburn
Date14 December 2022
Time10:30 to 12:30
PlaceOnline Only

Online only

OrganizerCRPR
Email

Abstract

If animals had rights, what would we eat? We might imagine that the food system of an animal-rights-respecting state would be vegan. But there are reasons to think that a vegan food system may be suboptimal for humans, and even animals.

Perhaps, then, there's much to say in favour of an animal-rights-respecting, non-vegan food system. But could such a thing exist? I argue that it could. The exploitation of non-rights-bearing animals, developments in 'cellular agriculture', and reimagined forms of working with animals give us the prospect of a future in which we can have our cow, and eat her too. Perhaps this is a future that all of us could strive for.