CMV: The most important moral decision of our generation is to stop consuming meat

I am a philosopher at Oxford University and I’ve made the case here that the most important moral decision of our generation is to stop consuming meat. This is my argument, the evidence for it, and a reply to the most common objections.<br><br>**Why Animal Suffering Matters**<br><br>Humans have made tremendous progress addressing the injustices of racism, sexism, and speciesism of different forms, but animals’ moral status is being entirely ignored. Animals are sentient beings with moral status, just like humans. We do not accept racism because we recognise the inherent value of individual humans and their experiences. We do not accept sexism because we recognise the inherent value of individual women and their experiences. We should not accept speciesism because we recognise the inherent value of individual animals and their experiences. Animal lives are valuable because they experience things in the same way that humans do.<br><br>Bodily autonomy matters. We would never condone humans being used by others. We would not condone individual humans being experimented on and killed for our benefit. So it is wrong to do that to animals too, because animal lives are valuable. <br><br>Every animal feels terror, anxiety, and joy in exactly the same way that humans do. They have personalities, friendships, and individual traits that make them unique. They are just as capable of complex emotional experiences as humans. If individual humans have inherent moral worth, it is the same for individual animals.<br><br>**Why Factory Farming is Immoral**<br><br>Factory farms breed animals in huge numbers to satisfy the demand for animal products. Every year, billions of animals are raised and killed inside massive factory farms. <br><br>There’s a common belief that we live on a free range farm with happy cows grazing in the fields, pigs rolling in the mud and chickens picking at grain in the farmyard. That idea is outdated. What is now called ‘traditional’ farming is the exception, not the rule. In the UK, 2% of laying hens are kept in free-range facilities. 60% of broiler (meat) chickens are in ‘standard’ factory farms. 20% of dairy farms are ‘free-range’. In the US, the percentages are much worse.<br><br>Animal farming is not like what you see in the movies. It is not idyllic like Babe, Zootopia or Shaun the Sheep. It is not even like what we might imagine - pigs rolling in the mud and cows grazing. What actually happens is bad beyond our imagination. Inside these factory farms, animals are kept in tiny cages, often smaller than an A4 sheet of paper. They are unable to walk, run or engage in their natural behaviours. <br><br>Dairy farms are the worst. Calves are taken away from their mothers after just a few days. They are either shot or raised and killed for beef or veal. If they are female, their fate is the same as their mother’s. They will be milked their entire lives, separated from their calves and eventually killed. <br><br>All animals in factory farms have their natural body parts mutilated before birth. Beak trimming for chickens, castrating for pigs, tail docking for farm animals. This is done to keep the animals from attacking each other in small spaces. They are unable to live natural lives and so they go mad and kill each other. The solution is not to give them space to live natural lives, but to permanently damage their bodies. <br><br>Farm animals are our fellow sentient beings. I don't need to tell you how bad mutilating their bodies, keeping them in tiny cages and killing them for food is. It is self-evidently wrong. If we would not do that to humans, we cannot do that to animals. <br><br>These are sentient, emotional, living beings who are just as capable of joy and terror as humans are. Their individual lives have inherent value. They have inherent moral worth. <br><br>**Why Factory Farming is Unsustainable**<br><br>‘Sustainable farming’ is a myth, because all farming is unsustainable. Animals eat 30 times more food than they produce. So we feed them the food that we could eat ourselves. Animal farming takes up 2/3 of the Earth's agricultural land. So we could feed at least 3 times the global population by going plant-based. But the problem is much worse than that. We do not grow the feed for farm animals in our own countries. We import it all from South America. So the grain is grown in South America, sent to our countries, fed to our farm animals, and then we eat them. It takes just 26 Bathtubs full of water to grow 1 Bathtub of Wheat. It takes 172 Bathtubs of water to grow just 1 Bathtub of Soy. But it takes 1722 Bathtubs of water to produce just 1 Bathtub of Milk. Animal products by their very nature are inefficient, wasteful, and unsustainable. <br><br>This leads to the second, interconnected problem - climate change. Animal farming produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all modes of transport combined. In fact, the single biggest thing that an individual can do to reduce their carbon footprint by up to 50% is to go vegan. There are 1.6 billion livestock on Earth producing greenhouse gas emissions. That is 3 times the number of cars on the planet. If we eliminated transport emissions entirely we would only have the equivalent impact of half the planet going vegan. <br><br>Factory farming is so destructive to the planet that it’s driving us towards extinction. <br><br>**Why Telling People to Go Plant-Based Works**<br><br>People often say that they cannot give up animal products because they love the taste. But people said that about cocaine in the 1990s. We recognised collectively that the joy of recreational drug taking was not worth the horrors of cocaine slavery. So we collectively stopped taking drugs. If we recognise that the taste of animal products is not worth the horrors of animal slavery and climate change, we can do the same thing again. <br><br>The best evidence we have shows that social norms have a huge influence on our food choices. If we collectively choose to avoid meat, more people will avoid meat. Social norms are the most important factor in food choices. There are plenty of examples that prove this. The moral consensus around not using humans for science has meant that far fewer people talk about doing it. The moral consensus around consent has meant that individuals who would have otherwise been abusive know that the social norms are against them. Social norms can change individual choices. <br><br>I went plant-based for the animals in 2015. I gave up animal products for 2 reasons - animals and the environment. But I found out that I felt physically and mentally better. I had more energy, better digestion, better concentration, and I was less depressed and anxious. I looked better and felt better.<br><br>**Conclusion**<br><br>Humans have made tremendous progress addressing the injustices of racism, sexism, and speciesism of different forms, but animals’ moral status is being entirely ignored. Every animal feels terror, anxiety, and joy in exactly the same way that humans do. They have personalities, friendships, and individual traits that make them unique. They are just as capable of complex emotional experiences as humans. If individual humans have inherent moral worth, it is the same for individual animals. <br><br>Factory farms breed animals in huge numbers to satisfy the demand for animal products. Every year, billions of animals are raised and killed inside massive factory farms. What is now called ‘traditional’ farming is the exception, not the rule. In the UK, 2% of laying hens are kept in free-range facilities. 60% of broiler (meat) chickens are in ‘standard’ factory farms. 20% of dairy farms are ‘free-range’. In the US, the percentages are much worse. <br><br>Animal farming is not like what you see in the movies. It is not idyllic like Babe, Zootopia or Shaun the Sheep. It is not even like what we might imagine - pigs rolling in the mud and cows grazing. What actually happens is bad beyond our imagination. Inside these factory farms, animals are kept in tiny cages, often smaller than an A4 sheet of paper. They are unable to walk, run or engage in their natural behaviours. <br><br>Farm animals are our fellow sentient beings. I don't need to tell you how bad mutilating their bodies, keeping them in tiny cages and killing them for food is. It is self-evidently wrong. If we would not do that to humans, we cannot do that to animals. <br><br>These are sentient, emotional, living beings who are just as capable of joy and terror as humans are. Their individual lives have inherent value. They have inherent moral worth. <br><br>‘Sustainable farming’ is a myth, because all farming is unsustainable. Animals eat 30 times more food than they produce. So we feed them the food that we could eat ourselves. Animal farming takes up 2/3 of the Earth's agricultural land. So we could feed at least 3 times the global population by going plant-based. But the problem is much worse than that. We do not grow the feed for farm animals in our own countries. We import it all from South America. So the grain is grown in South America, sent to our countries, fed to our farm animals, and then we eat them. It takes just 26 Bathtubs full of water to grow 1 Bathtub of Wheat. It takes 172 Bathtubs of water to grow just 1 Bathtub of Soy. But it takes 1722 Bathtubs of water to produce just 1 Bathtub of Milk. Animal products by their very nature are inefficient, wasteful, and unsustainable. <br><br>This leads to the second, interconnected problem - climate change. Animal farming produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all modes of transport combined. In fact, the single biggest thing that an individual can do to reduce their carbon footprint by up to 50% is to go vegan. There are 1.6 billion livestock on Earth